Skip to main content
Main

Curried Rabbit

A rabbit stew with curry, onions, apple, and clarified dripping, finished with milk and lemon juice.

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

Why it works: Milk and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,374 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Curried Rabbit

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the rabbit

  1. Dip rabbit pieces into melted dripping and coat with a mixture of curry powder and flour.

  2. Heat clarified dripping in a stewpan, add minced onions, and fry for 3 minutes.

  3. Add rabbit pieces and fry quickly for 15 minutes, turning occasionally.

Make the curry sauce

  1. Add chopped apple, sweet chutney, and coarse sea salt to the curry.

  2. Pour in the flavored stock or water, stir, cover, and place in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 3 hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove from oven, arrange meat on a hot dish, and stir milk into the sauce.

  2. Let the sauce simmer for 1-2 minutes, add lemon juice, and strain over the meat.

  3. Serve with boiled rice on a separate dish.

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. Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

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

  3. Apple + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  4. Lemon + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  5. Rabbit + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together252 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Rabbit
Provides the meat that becomes tender during the long, gentle braise.
Flour
Coats the rabbit and thickens the curry sauce as it cooks.
Dripping
Adds fat for frying and carries the curry flavour through the dish.
Curry powder
Gives the dish its main spiced aroma and flavour.
Onions
Soften and sweeten as they fry, forming the base of the sauce.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mellows the sharpness of the curry.

The step that matters

Long, covered oven braise. Three hours at a steady moderate heat is needed to make the rabbit tender; cooking too fast or uncovered can dry the meat and reduce the sauce unevenly.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, flour, onion, milk, lemon, rice):

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Avocadofits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, flour, onion, milk, lemon, rice. 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.

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesRice FrittersRice Fritters84 recipesSteamed RiceSteamed Rice48 recipesApple SoupApple Soup33 recipes