Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 29,030 recipes mention both. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓
The recipe
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Slice and fry the onions until golden brown.
Slightly brown the pieces of fowl or rabbit.
Make the soup
Line a stewpan with the ham, then add the onions, garlic, fowl, and stock.
Simmer until the meat is tender, then skim the surface.
Mix the curry powder with a little stock until smooth, then add it to the pot.
Add the pounded almonds mixed with a few drops of stock.
Season with lemon pickle and salt to taste.
Serve
Serve with boiled rice.
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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together29,030 recipes
Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
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Rabbit + hamtop 5% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together273 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
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Garlic + rabbittop 6% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together217 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-hexanol (resin, flower).
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Garlic + lemontop 7% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together8,862 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Onion + rabbittop 7% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together1,291 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Curry powder
- Provides the spiced, aromatic flavour that defines the soup.
- Pounded almonds
- Adds body and a rich, creamy thickness to the soup.
- Fowl or rabbit
- Supplies the meat that becomes tender during simmering and gives the soup its savoury base.
- Onions
- Sweeten and deepen the flavour as they brown and soften into the stock.
- Lean ham
- Lends savoury, salty depth to the stock.
The step that matters
Simmer until the meat is tender, then skim the surface. Gentle simmering keeps the meat tender rather than tough, and skimming removes foam and fat that would otherwise cloud the broth and taste greasy.
Flavor stand-ins for the almond
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, garlic, lemon, rabbit, ham):
- Beansbetter flavor fit
- Peasbetter flavor fit
- Peanutbetter flavor fit
- Almondthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against onion, garlic, lemon, rabbit, ham. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).
“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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