Skip to main content
Main

Mtjlligatawney Soup

A curry soup made with mutton or rabbit, onions, garlic, almonds, ham, and stock, seasoned with lemon pickle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Mtjlligatawney Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Slice and fry the onions until golden brown.

  2. Slightly brown the joints of the fowl or rabbit.

  3. Line a stewpan with the ham, then add the onions, garlic, fowl, and stock.

Simmer and finish

  1. Simmer until the meat is tender, then skim the surface.

  2. When the meat is done, add the curry mixed with a little stock and the pounded almonds.

  3. Season to taste with lemon pickle and salt if necessary.

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

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

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Garlic + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,893 recipes

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

  3. Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Fowl or rabbit
Provides the meat, which becomes tender through long simmering in the stock.
Onions
Frying to golden brown adds sweetness and savoury depth to the soup base.
Curry powder
Supplies the spiced aroma and flavour that define the soup.
Pounded almonds
Thicken the soup slightly and add richness and a nutty body.
Stock
Forms the liquid base that carries flavour and cooks the meat.

The step that matters

Adding the curry and almonds. Curry powder is best mixed with a little stock before it goes in, so it disperses evenly instead of clumping. Adding it once the meat is done keeps its aroma from cooking off during the long simmer.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, clove, garlic, almond, rabbit, ham):

  1. Avocadofits about as well
  2. Coconutfits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Limefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, clove, garlic, almond, rabbit, ham. 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.

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesAlmond SoupAlmond Soup60 recipesAlmond SaladAlmond Salad6 recipesRabbit PattiesRabbit Patties6 recipes