Skip to main content
Main

Rabbit, Fricassee of

A rabbit stew with butter, flour, stock, milk, and vegetables, finished with a sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Rabbit, Fricassee of

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rabbit

  1. Cut the rabbit into neat joints and rinse in warm water.

  2. Place the rabbit in a stewpan and add enough white stock to cover it.

  3. Bring to a boil, then add the prepared vegetables, peppercorns, and a little salt.

  4. Cover closely and cook gently for about 1½ hours, or until the rabbit is tender, adding milk as needed to replace the stock.

Make the sauce

  1. Meanwhile, melt the butter, add the flour, stir, and cook gently without browning; set aside.

  2. Once the rabbit is ready, remove it and keep it warm.

  3. Strain the stock and add ½ pint to the flour and butter mixture, stirring until boiling; simmer gently for 10 minutes.

  4. Pass the vegetables through a fine sieve and stir the puree into the sauce.

Finish and serve

  1. Season to taste, return the rabbit to the sauce, heat thoroughly, 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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 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
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long, gentle simmering.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and carries flavour, forming the base of the roux with flour.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth sauce when cooked with butter as a roux.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softens the sauce's flavour, replacing the stock as it reduces.
Onions
Contribute sweetness and savoury depth to the stock and, once pureed, the sauce.

The step that matters

Cooking the flour and butter without browning. Cooking the roux gently only until it smells nutty but stays pale keeps the sauce light in colour and flavour, while overheating causes browning and a toasted taste that clashes with the delicate fricassee.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, butter, flour, milk, carrot, turnip, celery):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Arrowrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, butter, flour, milk, carrot, turnip, celery. 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.

More rabbit fricassee recipes

with Mushrooms 3White 3 See all 73 →

You might also like

Carrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesTurnip SoupTurnip Soup43 recipesCelery StewCelery Stew25 recipes