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Curried Rabbits

A stew of fried rabbits simmered in a spiced 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 gravy

  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.

Make the curry sauce

  1. In a bowl, mix butter rolled in flour with curry powder, turmeric, cayenne, lemon juice, and vinegar.

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

Cook and serve the rice

  1. For the rice, wash it in salt water, then boil 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 briefly before covering it.

  3. Serve the curried rabbits with the 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. 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 through slow stewing in the gravy.
Butter and flour
Form a roux-like paste that thickens the sauce and carries the curry flavour.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma and savoury depth to the gravy as it cooks.
Shallots
Add mild sweetness and aromatic body to the gravy.
Curry powder
Supplies the main spiced aroma and warm flavour of the sauce.
Lemon juice and vinegar
Add acidity that brightens the sauce and balances its richness.

The step that matters

Combining the butter-flour mixture with the rabbits. Stirring the butter and flour paste thoroughly into the hot gravy keeps it from clumping, so the sauce thickens evenly and coats the rabbit pieces.

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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