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Curried Rabbit

A rabbit stew with curry, onions, apple, and clarified dripping, served over boiled rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,374 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Curried Rabbit

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the rabbit

  1. Dip rabbit pieces into melted dripping and coat with a mixture of curry powder and flour.

Fry and braise

  1. Heat clarified dripping in a stewpan, add minced onions, and fry for 3 minutes.

  2. Add rabbit pieces and fry quickly for 15 minutes, turning occasionally.

  3. Add chopped apple, sweet chutney, and salt to the pan.

  4. Pour in the flavored stock or water, stir, cover, and place in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 3 hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove from oven, arrange meat on a hot dish, and stir milk into the sauce.

  2. Simmer for 1-2 minutes, add lemon juice, and strain sauce over the meat.

  3. Serve with boiled rice on a separate dish.

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. Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

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

  3. Apple + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 long, covered braising in the sauce.
Curry powder
Gives the dish its main spiced aroma and flavor when fried in fat.
Flour
Coats the rabbit and thickens the sauce as it cooks in the fat.
Onions
Soften and sweeten as they fry, forming the base flavor of the sauce.
Apple
Adds mild sweetness and body to the sauce as it breaks down during cooking.
Milk
Mellows the sauce and adds richness and a softer, creamier texture.

The step that matters

Adding the milk and simmering briefly. Milk can curdle or separate if boiled hard or added to a very hot, acidic sauce. Stirring it in off the oven and simmering only 1-2 minutes keeps the sauce smooth before the lemon juice is added.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, flour, onion, milk, lemon, 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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