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Fowl, Veal, or Rabbit Curry

A curry of fowl or rabbit and veal, browned in butter, cooked with onion, white stock, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Fowl, Veal, or Rabbit Curry

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and brown

  1. Dredge the fowl or rabbit pieces and veal slices in flour and curry powder.

  2. Fry in butter until browned, adding the finely shredded onion while frying.

Simmer and serve

  1. When the meat is half cooked and pale brown, pour in white stock.

  2. Finish cooking.

  3. Stir in a little lemon juice and serve hot.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Rabbit + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,292 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Rabbit + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  4. Rabbit + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together626 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Flour and butter 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

Fowl or rabbit
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender as it cooks slowly in the stock.
Veal
Adds a second meat that gives the curry a mild, delicate flavour.
Flour
Coats the meat so it browns in the butter and helps thicken the sauce.
Curry powder
Supplies the spiced aroma and flavour that define the dish.
Onion
Softens while frying and adds sweetness and body to the sauce.
White stock
Provides the liquid that cooks the meat and forms the sauce.

The step that matters

Browning the meat before adding stock. Frying the floured meat in butter until browned builds colour and roasted flavour through browning reactions. Adding stock too early leaves the coating pale and the flavour flat.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Coconutfits about as well
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Avocadofits less well

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