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Fricassee of Rabbits

A stew of rabbit pieces in a seasoned gravy thickened with butter, flour, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Fricassee of Rabbits

Ingredients

Directions

Stew the rabbits

  1. In a stewpan, combine the rabbits, veal stock, mace, lemon slice, anchovy, lemon pickle, cayenne, and salt.

  2. Stew over gentle heat until the rabbits are cooked through.

  3. Remove the rabbits and set them aside on a dish.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Thicken the gravy with butter and flour, then strain it.

  2. Mix the egg yolks with cream and nutmeg, then stir the mixture into the gravy.

  3. Heat the mixture until it simmers, then pour it over the rabbits and 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 their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Anchovy + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Rabbit + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  5. Veal + anchovytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together456 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Rabbits
Provide the main meat that becomes tender during slow stewing.
Veal stock
Forms the liquid base of the gravy and carries the flavours of the dish.
Butter
Enriches the gravy and, with flour, helps thicken it into a smooth sauce.
Flour
Thickens the gravy with butter to give it body.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the sauce when stirred in and gently heated.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture to the sauce, softening its texture.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolk and cream mixture to the gravy. Egg yolks can curdle if the gravy is too hot or boils after they are added. Heating gently until it only simmers lets the yolks thicken the sauce smoothly.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, veal, lemon, anchovy, pepper, butter, flour):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, veal, lemon, anchovy, pepper, butter, flour. 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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