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Curry of Rabbit

A rabbit curry made with butter, onion, flour, curry powder, tomatoes, milk, and served over boiled rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Curry of Rabbit

Oven, in the book's wordsA very hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the curry

  1. Brown the rabbit pieces in hot butter, then remove from the pan.

  2. In the same pan, cook the sliced onion until soft.

  3. Stir in the flour and curry powder, cooking for 1 minute.

  4. Add the water or stock, stirring until thickened.

  5. Mix in the strained tomatoes, sugar, salt, and pepper.

  6. Pour the sauce over the rabbit and stew until tender.

  7. Add the milk and heat until boiling.

Serve

  1. Serve with boiled rice.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 slow stewing in the sauce.
Butter
Carries the browning of the rabbit and adds richness to the pan base.
Onion
Softens and adds sweetness and body to the curry base.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it cooks with the liquid.
Curry powder
Supplies the spiced aroma that defines the dish.
Strained tomatoes
Add acidity and body to the sauce.

The step that matters

Stir the flour into the onions and cook for 1 minute before adding liquid. Cooking flour in fat for a short time cooks out its raw taste and lets it thicken the sauce evenly. Adding the liquid too early, or skipping this step, can leave lumps and a floury flavor.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, butter, onion, flour, sugar, pepper, milk. 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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