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A Brown Fricasee

A brown fricassee of rabbit or chicken pieces coated in egg yolk and spice, browned in butter, then simmered with gravy, wine, and mushrooms.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 6,557 recipes mention both. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Skin the rabbits or chickens and cut them into small pieces.

  2. Rub the pieces with yolks of eggs.

  3. Mix grated bread, beaten mace, and grated nutmeg together, then roll the meat in this mixture.

Fry and simmer

  1. Melt butter in a stewpan, then add the meat and fry until golden brown, ensuring it doesn't stick.

  2. Pour off excess butter, then add brown gravy, white wine, mushrooms, and salt if desired.

  3. Thicken the mixture with a piece of butter rolled in flour, then serve.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Mace + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. White wine + mushroomtop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,704 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  3. Bread + buttertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together27,145 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Butter + mushroomtop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together12,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  5. Butter + white winetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together5,039 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Bind the coating and enrich the surface so it browns richly.
Grated bread
Forms a crumb coating that helps the meat crisp and brown.
Butter
Fries the meat to golden brown and adds richness to the sauce.
Brown gravy
Provides the liquid base and savoury depth of the sauce.
Butter rolled in flour
Thickens the sauce as the flour cooks into the butter.

The step that matters

Frying the meat until golden brown. The meat must be fried in a hot pan without crowding and kept moving so it browns evenly and does not stick. Browning builds flavour through the Maillard reaction, and sticking can scorch the coating and darken the sauce.

Flavor stand-ins for the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, egg, bread, nutmeg, butter, white wine, mushroom):

  1. Thymebetter flavor fit
  2. Parsleyabout as good a flavor fit
  3. Marjoramabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, egg, bread, nutmeg, butter, white wine, mushroom. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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