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Rabbit, Curried

A rabbit stew cooked with curry powder, onions, apple, 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: Rice and onion 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

Prepare

  1. Wash the rabbit and dry it thoroughly.

  2. Cut the rabbit into small joints.

  3. Slice the apple and onions.

Make the curry

  1. Heat the butter or fat in a stewpan and fry the rabbit until lightly browned, then remove it from the pan.

  2. Add the onions to the pan and fry until deep brown.

  3. Add the curry powder and flour, and fry for 10 minutes.

  4. Pour in the stock and bring the mixture to a boil.

  5. Return the rabbit to the pan, add the apple and salt to taste, and cover the pot.

  6. Simmer gently for 1 to 1.5 hours.

  7. Add the lemon juice and adjust seasoning if necessary.

Serve

  1. Serve the rabbit in the center of a hot dish.

  2. Strain the sauce over the rabbit.

  3. Serve the rice separately.

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. Rice + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

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

  2. Rice + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Rice + appletop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,311 recipes

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

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 main meat, which becomes tender during the long gentle simmer.
Onions
Frying them until deep brown adds sweetness and savory depth to the sauce.
Curry powder
Supplies the spiced aroma and flavour that defines the dish.
Flour
Browned with the curry powder, it thickens the stock into a sauce.
Butter or fat
Carries the frying heat and browns the rabbit and onions, adding richness.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, spiced sauce.

The step that matters

Frying the curry powder and flour. Frying the spices and flour in fat for 10 minutes toasts the curry powder and cooks out the raw flour taste, so the sauce tastes rich rather than pasty. Stirring keeps it from scorching.

Swap the apple

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

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

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