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Fricassee of Rabbit

A stew of rabbit in a creamy sauce with butter, flour, stock, milk, and cream, garnished with fried bread, bacon, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Fricassee of Rabbit

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rabbit

  1. Tie the rabbit's head and legs together with a skewer and string.

  2. Place the rabbit in boiling water and simmer gently for 1 hour.

  3. Cut the rabbit into joints: hind legs in two, fore-legs whole, and back in 6 or 7 pieces.

Make the sauce

  1. In a pan, combine the rabbit joints with hot stock, onions, and seasonings; bring to a boil and simmer for 1 to 1.5 hours.

  2. Strain the stock.

  3. Melt butter in a pan, add flour, then stir in the strained stock until it boils.

  4. Add milk, cream, and seasoning; cook well.

Serve

  1. Add the rabbit joints to the sauce and heat through.

  2. Serve garnished with fried bread, curled bacon, and lemon.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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

Rabbit
Forms the main body of the dish and supplies the meat that the sauce accompanies.
Butter
Fat that enriches the sauce and carries flavour, and starts the roux.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth sauce when cooked with the butter.
Milk
Adds moisture and mild sweetness, softening the sauce's body.
Cream
Adds richness and a silkier texture to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the flour and stock to the butter. Cooking the flour in the melted butter before adding liquid forms a roux; stirring it smoothly into the stock as it boils prevents lumps and gives the sauce an even thickness.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, butter, flour, milk, cream, pepper, bread):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Leekfits about as well
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, butter, flour, milk, cream, pepper, bread. 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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