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Otjkried Rabbit

A rabbit stewed with onions, stock, curry powder and flour, finished with lemon juice and served with boiled rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Otjkried Rabbit

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rabbit

  1. Empty, skin, and wash the rabbit thoroughly.

  2. Cut the rabbit into joints.

Make the curry

  1. In a stewpan, melt the butter.

  2. Add the sliced onions and cook until they are brown but not blackened.

  3. Pour in the boiling stock (or water).

  4. Mix the curry powder and flour with a little water.

  5. Add this mixture to the stewpan.

  6. Add the mushroom powder and simmer gently for just over 30 minutes.

  7. Squeeze in the lemon juice.

Serve

  1. Serve the rabbit in the center of a dish, surrounded by 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 + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  2. Mushroom + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,515 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

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

  4. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rabbit
Is the main protein, becoming tender as it simmers slowly in the sauce.
Butter
Carries the onions and spices, and its milk solids brown to add flavour.
Onions
Caramelise when browned, adding sweetness and depth to the sauce.
Curry powder
Supplies the spiced aroma and flavour that define the dish.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a sauce as it simmers.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, spiced sauce.

The step that matters

Cook the onions until brown but not blackened. Browning builds sweet, savoury flavour through the Maillard reaction, but past that point the sugars burn and leave a bitter taste that spoils the sauce.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Mangofits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, butter, onion, flour, mushroom, 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.

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