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Mullagatawny Soup, Fowl

A hearty fowl soup with veal, ham, onions, curry powder, and lemon, served with boiled rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and 2,083 recipes mention both. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Mullagatawny Soup, Fowl

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Place the fowl trimmings in a saucepan with water, veal, ham, peppercorns, and allspice.

  2. Bring to a boil, skim the soup, then simmer for about 1 hour and strain.

Fry and simmer

  1. Fry the nicest pieces of meat in butter with the sliced onions until golden brown.

  2. Add the fried meat and onions to the stock, bring to a boil, skim, and simmer for 30 minutes.

  3. Mix curry powder with arrowroot, salt, and enough milk or water to achieve desired consistency.

  4. Add the mixture to the soup and simmer gently until the meat is tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Strain the soup, add lemon juice to taste, and serve with boiled rice.

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. Allspice + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,083 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together7,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together10,433 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fowl
Gives the meat and body of the soup its main flavour and substance as it simmers.
Onions
Browning in butter builds sweetness and depth in the finished soup.
Curry powder
Supplies the spiced aroma and flavour that defines the dish.
Arrowroot (in the method)
Thickens the curry mixture so it gives the soup a smoother consistency.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, spiced broth.

The step that matters

Frying the meat and onions until golden brown. Browning in butter creates savoury, caramelised flavours through the Maillard reaction and sugar caramelisation. Pale or burnt onions will noticeably change the soup's taste, so frying should stop at golden brown.

Flavor stand-ins for the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, ham, butter, onion, milk, lemon, rice):

  1. Parsleybetter flavor fit
  2. Thymebetter flavor fit
  3. Celerybetter flavor fit
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, butter, onion, milk, 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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