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Mullagatawny Soup

A curry-flavored soup with chicken, veal, apples, lemon, and rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and 4,769 recipes mention both. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓

Mullagatawny Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. In a large pot, combine chicken, veal, curry powder, cloves, sugar, peppercorns, and water.

  2. Bring to a boil and simmer until the meat is tender.

  3. Strain the stock, keeping small pieces of meat in the soup.

Finish the soup

  1. Reheat the soup, adding more seasoning if desired, along with the rice and pieces of meat.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Chicken + ricetop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together4,769 recipes

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

  2. Clove + appletop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Clove + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Lemon + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together4,366 recipes

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

  5. Clove + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together1,982 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Simmering releases meat flavor and gelatin into the stock, giving the soup body and savoriness.
Veal knuckle
Its connective tissue breaks down into gelatin during long simmering, giving the stock richness and body.
Curry powder
Blooms in the hot liquid to add warm, aromatic spice flavor throughout the soup.
Rice
Absorbs liquid as it reheats, adding light body and thickening the soup slightly.

The step that matters

Simmer until the meat is tender. A gentle simmer rather than a hard boil keeps the stock clear and lets the meat cook evenly and become tender without turning tough or cloudy.

Flavor stand-ins for the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, veal, clove, sugar, lemon, rice):

  1. Orangebetter flavor fit
  2. Coconutbetter flavor fit
  3. Limebetter flavor fit
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, veal, clove, sugar, lemon, rice. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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