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Mulligatawny Soup

A hearty veal soup with onions, ham, curry powder, and optional vegetables, simmered in a rich stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and carrot are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 21,601 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Mulligatawny Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Make a strong stock by simmering veal trimmings, gristle, bones, and knuckle in 3 quarts of water for several hours.

Make the soup

  1. In a deep stew pan, sauté the veal pieces, sliced onions, and ham in butter until slightly browned.

  2. Stir in the flour and pour the strained stock over the meat mixture.

  3. Simmer gently for 1 hour, skimming off fat as it rises.

  4. Add curry powder, salt, and cayenne, and continue simmering until the veal is thoroughly cooked.

  5. Remove the ham before serving. Optionally, add sautéed carrot, turnip, or apples.

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 + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + carrottop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,029 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Veal + carrottop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,015 recipes

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Provides meat flavor and gelatin from the bones and knuckle, giving the soup body.
Flour
Thickens the stock so the soup has a fuller, heavier texture.
Curry powder
Supplies the spiced, aromatic flavor that defines the soup.
Onions
Browned in butter, they add sweetness and savory depth to the base.
Butter
Fat for frying that carries flavor and promotes browning of the meat and onions.

The step that matters

Skimming fat during the simmer. Fat rising from the veal and ham can make the soup greasy and dull in flavor, so skimming it as it forms keeps the broth clean-tasting.

Swap the carrot

The recipe marks carrot as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, butter, onion, ham, flour):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Carrotthe original

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