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Rabbit, Curried

A stew of rabbit pieces cooked in a curry‑flavored gravy with bacon, onions, apples, and stock, served over rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,433 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Rabbit, Curried

Ingredients

Directions

Brown the meat

  1. Fry the bacon in butter until browned, then remove and set aside.

  2. Brown the rabbit pieces in the bacon fat, then lift them out.

Make the gravy

  1. Fry the onions and minced apples in the same fat until soft.

  2. Rub the onion and apple mixture through a sieve and mix with curry paste, curry powder, flour, and stock or water with Bovril.

Simmer and serve

  1. Combine the gravy with the rabbit and bacon in a stewpan and simmer gently until the rabbit is cooked through.

  2. Serve the rabbit on a dish, pour the gravy over it, and serve with boiled 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. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Apple + ricetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,311 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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
Supplies the main meat, which becomes tender as it simmers in the gravy.
Bacon
Adds savoury, salty fat flavour that carries into the frying and the gravy.
Onions
Break down when softened, thickening the gravy and adding sweetness.
Sour apples
Add acidity and body, balancing the richness and the curry spices.
Curry powder
Provides the main spice aroma and warmth of the dish.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so it coats the rabbit and rice.

The step that matters

Simmer gently until the rabbit is cooked through. Rapid boiling toughens meat proteins and can break up the gravy. A gentle simmer lets the rabbit become tender while the sauce stays smooth.

Swap the apple

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

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

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