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Curried Rabbit

A stew of rabbit pieces cooked with onions, apple, curry powder, stock, and cream, finished with lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Curried Rabbit

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash each piece of rabbit in cold water and drain on a sieve.

  2. Melt the butter in a clean stewpan over low heat.

  3. Fry the onions in the butter until pale brown, stirring constantly.

  4. Remove the onions and drain on kitchen paper, returning the butter to the stewpan.

Make the stew

  1. Add the rabbit pieces to the stewpan and brown them on all sides for about 10 minutes.

  2. Add the curry powder and salt, stirring for 5 minutes to mix thoroughly.

  3. Stir in the onions, apple, and stock.

  4. Cover and simmer slowly for 2 hours, shaking occasionally.

  5. Gradually stir in the cream.

  6. Squeeze the lemon juice through a strainer into the stewpan.

Serve

  1. Arrange the rabbit pieces on a hot dish and pour the sauce over.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Rabbit + creamtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together409 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  3. Rabbit + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,292 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

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

  5. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

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

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 slow simmering.
Onions
Soften and brown in butter, adding sweetness and depth to the sauce.
Curry powder
Supplies the spiced aroma and flavour that defines the dish.
Butter
Carries the spices and onions and adds richness to the sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and a smoother, rounder texture to the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, spiced sauce.

The step that matters

Browning the rabbit pieces. Browning builds savoury flavour through the Maillard reaction, so the rabbit should be seared on all sides before the stock goes in. Pale or steamed meat gives a flatter stew.

Swap the apple

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

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

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