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Frigasse of Rabbit

A rabbit stew with a sauce of butter, flour, lemon, and spices, served with fried croutons and bacon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Frigasse of Rabbit

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rabbit

  1. Clean the rabbit and soak it in tepid water for one hour.

  2. Cut the rabbit into neat joints and place in a pan with enough cold water to cover.

  3. Add pepper, salt, onion, and parsley.

  4. Bring to a boil, remove scum, and simmer for 45 minutes.

  5. Strain the stock and set aside.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a pan, add flour, and stir well without browning.

  2. Add 1 pint of the stock and bring to a boil.

  3. Add the rabbit and cook for 20 minutes.

  4. Beat the yolks, add lemon juice, and stir into the sauce. Keep hot but do not boil.

  5. Season with nutmeg and other spices to taste.

Serve

  1. Serve on a dish with sauce poured over, garnished with fried croutons and diced fried bacon or small boiled onions.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Pepper + oniontop 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

Flour
Thickens the butter and stock into a smooth, lightly bodied sauce.
Butter
Carries the flour for the roux and adds richness and flavour to the sauce.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the sauce, giving it a smooth, velvety body.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce and balances its richness.
Rabbit
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long simmering.

The step that matters

Adding the yolks to the sauce. Egg yolks thicken by gentle heat and can scramble or curdle if the sauce boils. Keeping the sauce hot but below boiling keeps it smooth and glossy.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, flour, butter, pepper, parsley, lemon, onion. 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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