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Mulligatawny Soup

A spiced chicken and beef soup with ground spices, roasted kus-kus, and ghee.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Turmeric and cumin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,698 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Mulligatawny Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare beef soup using the shin bone, omitting sauce, wine, and egg white; set aside.

  2. Cut the chicken into pieces for curry and wash well.

  3. Melt ghee in a pot and fry sliced onions until brown; remove and set aside.

Make the soup

  1. Fry all ground spices except kus-kus in the melted ghee, adding a little water while frying.

  2. Add the chicken pieces and salt; cook until nearly brown.

  3. Stir in the ground kus-kus, pour in the beef soup, and add fried onions and curry leaves.

  4. Cover and simmer on low heat until the chicken is tender.

Serve

  1. Serve hot with lime slices on a separate plate.

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. Turmeric + cumintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,698 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Coriander + cumintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,866 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Turmeric + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  5. Ginger + coriandertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

What each ingredient does

Shin bone
Gives the beef soup base its body and savoury depth.
Chicken
Provides the main protein, which becomes tender through slow simmering.
Ground kus-kus
Thickens the soup and adds body as it cooks.
Ghee
Carries the spices and browns the onions, adding richness.
Ground onions
Adds sweetness and body to the spice base as it fries.
Ground turmeric
Adds earthy flavour and a warm golden colour.

The step that matters

Frying the ground spices in ghee. Spices release their aroma and flavour mainly when briefly fried in fat. Adding a little water helps keep them from scorching before the chicken goes in.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, turmeric, ginger, garlic, coriander, cumin, ghee):

  1. Tomatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Spinachfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, turmeric, ginger, garlic, coriander, cumin, ghee. 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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