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Rabbit Curry

A slow‑cooked rabbit dish flavored with curry powder, coconut, raisins, and wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Coconut and raisin work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 183 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Rabbit Curry

Ingredients

Directions

Layer and marinate

  1. In an earthen crock, layer a slice of bacon and a few pieces of rabbit.

  2. Sprinkle with curry powder, salt, grated coconut, and raisins.

  3. Repeat layers until all rabbit and coconut are used.

  4. Moisten with wine and let stand for 24 hours.

Cook and serve

  1. Place the crock in a pot of water and simmer for 2 hours, covered.

  2. Serve on a flat dish with rice on the side.

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. Coconut + raisintop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together183 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Rabbit + coconuttop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Rabbit + raisintop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Raisin + winetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Coconut + winetop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together159 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Rabbits
Provides the meat that becomes tender during the long, gentle simmer.
Bacon
Adds fat and savory flavor that seeps into the meat and coconut.
Fresh grated coconut
Adds fat, body and a subtle sweetness to the sauce.
Curry powder
Supplies the aromatic spices that define the dish's flavor.
Catawba or rhine wine
Adds acidity and moisture that helps tenderize the rabbit during the long rest.

The step that matters

Let the crock stand for 24 hours after moistening. The wine, spices and salt need the full resting time to soak into the rabbit and coconut. Rushing this leaves the meat less tender and the flavor shallow on the surface only.

Swap the coconut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, raisin, wine):

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Applefits better
  3. Currantfits better
  4. Coconutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, raisin, wine. 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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