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Curried Rabbits

A dish of fried rabbit simmered in a curry-flavored gravy served with boiled rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and turmeric match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 282 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Curried Rabbits

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the curry

  1. Boil garlic and shallots in water until done, then strain the gravy.

  2. Add fried rabbits to the gravy and let them stew gently for about an hour.

  3. In a bowl, mix butter and flour, then gradually stir in curry powder, turmeric, cayenne, lemon juice, and vinegar.

  4. Combine this mixture with the rabbits and stir well.

Cook the rice and serve

  1. Wash the rice in salt water, then boil it in 2 quarts of water for 20 minutes.

  2. Strain the rice, shake it out into a dish, and let it sit by the fire for a short time before covering it.

  3. Serve the curried rabbits with the rice in 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. Shallot + turmerictop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together282 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  3. Turmeric + lemontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,192 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Garlic + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,000 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Turmeric + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Rabbits
Provide the main protein, which becomes tender after slow stewing in the gravy.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma and savoury depth to the gravy as it cooks down.
Butter
Melts with the flour to form a roux that thickens the sauce and carries flavour.
Flour
Thickens the sauce with butter, giving it body so it clings to the rabbit.
Curry powder
Supplies the main spiced flavour of the curry.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, spiced sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring the butter and flour into the spices. Flour mixed with melted butter forms a roux; adding the spices and acid gradually while stirring keeps the sauce smooth instead of lumpy.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, garlic, shallot, turmeric, pepper, vinegar, butter):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Limefits about as well
  3. Mangofits less well
  4. Avocadofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, garlic, shallot, turmeric, pepper, vinegar, butter. 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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