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Fricassee Rabbit

A rabbit stew simmered with herbs, salt pork, and a creamy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Fricassee Rabbit

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the rabbits and soak them in salt water for 30 minutes.

  2. Place the rabbits in a saucepan with cold water, sweet herbs, minced onion, mace, nutmeg, pepper, and salt pork.

Stew

  1. Cover and stew until the rabbits are tender.

  2. Remove the rabbits and keep them warm in a dish.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Add cream, beaten eggs (stirred in gradually), butter, and a thickening made from flour and a little milk to the gravy.

  2. Bring to a boil, then remove from heat and stir in lemon juice.

  3. Pour the sauce over the rabbits before serving.

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. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Rabbit + porktop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together832 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  4. Onion + porktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  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

Rabbits
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender through slow stewing in liquid.
Salt pork
Adds savory fat and rich flavor to the stewing liquid and gravy.
Eggs
Thicken the cream sauce as they set gently with heat, giving it body.
Cream
Adds richness and fat, giving the gravy a smooth, mellow texture.
Flour
Thickens the gravy, giving it body so it coats the rabbit.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich cream sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the beaten eggs to the sauce. Eggs set when heated, so they must be stirred in gradually and the sauce kept below a hard boil. Otherwise they can curdle and turn grainy instead of creating a smooth, thick gravy.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, onion, nutmeg, pepper, pork, cream, egg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, onion, nutmeg, pepper, pork, cream, egg. 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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