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Mullagatawny Soup

A soup of chicken, veal, apples, cloves, peppercorns, curry powder, and rice simmered in water.

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 cooks put them together in 4,769 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓

Mullagatawny Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Combine the chicken, veal, cloves, peppercorns, apples, lemon juice, salt, curry powder, sugar, and water in a large pot.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil, then simmer until the meat is tender.

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

Finish and serve

  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 their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Chicken + ricetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,769 recipes

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

  2. Clove + appletop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Clove + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Lemon + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

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

  5. Clove + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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 or fowl
Provides the main meat and savory body as it simmers into the broth.
Knuckle of veal
Releases collagen during long simmering, giving the broth body and a richer mouthfeel.
Sour apples
Add acidity and fruitiness that balance the curry and rich broth.
Curry powder
Supplies the warm, aromatic spice flavor that defines the soup.
Well-cooked rice
Adds soft body and thickens the soup slightly when reheated.

The step that matters

Simmer until the meat is tender. Gentle simmering, rather than a hard boil, lets collagen in the bones and veal break down slowly into gelatin, which gives the broth body. A rolling boil makes the broth cloudy and the meat tough.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, veal, clove, lemon, sugar, rice. 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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