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Soyer’s Mulligatawny Soup

A hearty stew of veal, ham, vegetables, apples, and curry, simmered for hours and served with rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and turnip are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 8,001 recipes mention both. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Soyer’s Mulligatawny Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Cut the veal into pieces and place in a stewpan with butter, ham, carrot, turnip, onions, and apples.

  2. Add ½ pint of water and set over high heat.

  3. Stir occasionally until the bottom is glazed.

  4. Stir in curry powder, curry paste, and flour.

  5. Fill the stewpan with 1 gallon of water.

  6. Add salt and sugar.

  7. Bring to a boil.

  8. Reduce heat.

Simmer and strain

  1. Simmer for 2.5 hours, skimming off fat.

  2. Strain the soup into a tureen.

  3. Trim some veal pieces.

  4. Return the veal to the stewpan.

  5. Boil briefly.

Serve

  1. Serve with plain boiled 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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Carrot + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together8,001 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + oniontop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together21,599 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Turnip + oniontop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together7,584 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,859 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + appletop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together8,692 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

Veal knuckle
Releases gelatin and meaty flavour into the broth as it simmers.
Apples
Add natural sweetness and a mellow acidity that balances the curry spices.
Flour
Thickens the soup slightly and helps the curry spices cling to the base.
Curry powder
Provides the main spiced aroma and flavour of the soup.
Onions
Build savoury sweetness and body as they soften and brown in the pot.

The step that matters

Glazing the bottom of the pot before adding liquid. Stirring until the bottom glazes browns the butter, meat and vegetable sugars, building deep savoury flavour. Stopping too early leaves the broth flat, while burning leaves a bitter taste.

Flavor stand-ins for the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, butter, ham, carrot, turnip, onion, flour):

  1. Lemonabout as good a flavor fit
  2. Applethe original
  3. Grapeabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, butter, ham, carrot, turnip, onion, flour. 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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