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Oriental Mullagatawny Soup

A hearty soup made with chicken, veal, vegetables, rice, and curry seasoning.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 8,053 recipes mention both. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Oriental Mullagatawny Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Combine the chicken, onion, carrot, celery, parsley, cloves, cayenne pepper, and salt in a soup kettle.

  2. Cover with 4 quarts of water.

  3. Add the veal pieces.

  4. Add the rice.

  5. Simmer for 3 hours.

  6. Remove the chicken pieces. Trim them. Set aside.

Make the soup

  1. Fry the onion, carrot, and celery in butter until light brown.

  2. Stir in the flour. Cook for 1-2 minutes.

  3. Add the curry powder and the chicken and veal broth.

  4. Simmer for 1 hour.

  5. Strain the soup. Skim off the fat.

  6. Return it to the heat. Add the chicken pieces and whole boiled rice. Cook until the chicken is thoroughly heated.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Gives the broth its body and rich savory flavor as it simmers.
Veal pieces
Adds gelatin from bones and knuckle, giving the broth a fuller, silkier texture.
Butter
Carries the frying of the vegetables, adding richness and browning them for depth of flavor.
Flour
Cooked briefly in the butter to thicken the soup slightly and add body.
Curry powder
Provides the warm spiced aroma that defines the soup.
Rice
Softens and thickens the broth as it simmers, adding body.

The step that matters

Cooking the flour in the butter. Cooking the flour for only 1-2 minutes with the fried vegetables coats it in fat and cooks out raw starch taste, so it thickens smoothly without lumps when the broth is added.

Flavor stand-ins for the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, onion, carrot, celery, parsley, pepper, veal):

  1. Thymebetter flavor fit
  2. Marjorambetter flavor fit
  3. Tarragonbetter flavor fit
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, onion, carrot, celery, parsley, pepper, veal. 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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