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Fricandeau

A stew of hare, ham, suet, onions, carrots, and spices, thickened with a brown roux and flavored with beef stock and port.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Fricandeau

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the hare

  1. Cut the hare into small pieces and save the blood in a cup.

  2. Combine hare pieces, minced ham, suet, onions, carrots, herbs, pepper, and salt in a stewpan.

  3. Fry the mixture over high heat for 5 minutes.

Make the sauce

  1. Make a brown roux with butter and flour in another pan.

  2. Gradually add the beef bouillon and port or marsala to the roux, stirring until well combined.

  3. Pour the mixture over the hare.

Stew and serve

  1. Let it stew slowly until fully cooked.

  2. Remove the meat from the soup.

  3. Keep the neatest pieces for serving.

  4. Return the soup to the heat.

  5. Skim off any grease that rises to the surface.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Pepper + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Carrot + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,606 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Hare
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through slow stewing.
Butter and flour
Form a brown roux that thickens the sauce and adds color and nutty flavor.
Beef bouillon
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding savory depth as it reduces.
Port or marsala
Adds sweetness and aromatic depth to the sauce.
Suet
Adds fat that carries flavor and keeps the meat moist during frying and stewing.
Raw lean ham
Contributes savory, salty flavor to the base of the stew.

The step that matters

Skim off any grease that rises to the surface. Fat released from the suet, ham and meat floats on the stew and can make the sauce greasy and heavy if left in. Skimming during stewing keeps the sauce clean and balanced.

Swap the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, onion, pepper, butter, flour, beef):

  1. Potatofits about as well
  2. Leekfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, onion, pepper, butter, flour, beef. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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