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Curried Fillets of Rabbits

A dish of rabbit fillets simmered in a curry‑flavored white sauce served over rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Saffron and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 104 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Curried Fillets of Rabbits

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rabbit

  1. Cut rabbit fillets in half and lard them.

  2. Braise the fillets as you would sweetbreads.

Cook the rice

  1. Wash the rice thoroughly and boil until nearly cooked, then drain.

  2. In a stewpan, combine the rice, 4 oz. butter, and saffron, and finish cooking.

Make the curry sauce

  1. In another stewpan, heat 4 oz. butter and add onions, apples, bay leaves, mace, thyme, parsley, and peppercorns; cook until brown and tender.

  2. Dredge in curry powder and flour, stirring until mixed.

  3. Gradually pour in white sauce and white stock, then boil for 15 minutes.

  4. Strain the sauce through a fine sieve into another saucepan, skim, season with salt, pepper, and sugar, and boil again.

Finish and serve

  1. Glaze the fillets and brown them under a salamander.

  2. Arrange the fillets in a circle on a hot dish, pile the rice in the center, pour some sauce around the fillets, and serve the remainder in a sauceboat.

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. Saffron + thymetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together104 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Rice + saffrontop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together629 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  5. Rice + thymetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together912 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Rabbit fillets
Provide the main protein, which is braised until tender and then browned for color.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavor into the rice and the onion-apple base.
Rice
Forms the starchy base that soaks up the sauce alongside the fillets.
Flour
Thickens the curry mixture as it is cooked with the curry powder and sauces.
Curry powder
Supplies the spiced aroma and warm flavor that define the sauce.
White sauce
Forms the creamy body of the sauce, giving it richness and smoothness.

The step that matters

Browning the fillets under a salamander. Glazed fillets can scorch quickly under intense direct heat, and the glaze can burn before the surface is evenly browned. Watch closely and brown just until golden.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, butter, rice, saffron, onion, apple, thyme. 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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