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Soyer's Mulligatawny Soup

A hearty soup of veal, ham, vegetables, apples, and curry, simmered and strained, served with boiled rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and turnip are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 8,001 recipes mention both. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Soyer's Mulligatawny Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Cut the veal into pieces and place in a stewpan with butter, ham, carrot, turnip, onions, and apples.

  2. Add ½ pint of water and heat over a sharp fire, stirring occasionally until the bottom is glazed.

Make the soup

  1. Stir in curry powder, curry paste, and flour, then fill the stewpan with 1 gallon of water.

  2. Add salt and sugar, bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 2.5 hours, skimming off fat.

  3. Strain the soup through a tammy into a tureen, trim veal pieces, and return to the stewpan to boil.

Serve

  1. Serve with plain boiled rice on the side.

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 + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together8,001 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + oniontop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together21,599 recipes

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

  3. Turnip + oniontop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together7,584 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,859 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + appletop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together8,692 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal knuckle
Releases gelatin and savoury flavour into the broth as it simmers for a long time.
Apples
Add sweetness and a fruity acidity that balances the curry spices.
Flour
Thickens the soup body, giving it a fuller texture.
Curry powder
Provides the main spiced aroma and flavour of the soup.
Onions
Build sweetness and savoury depth when softened and browned in butter.

The step that matters

Glazing the base before adding water. Stirring over a sharp fire until the bottom glazes browns the onions, meat and fat, building deep flavour. Pale, unglazed bits give a flatter soup, while scorching would taste bitter.

Flavor stand-ins for the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, butter, ham, carrot, turnip, onion, flour):

  1. Lemonabout as good a flavor fit
  2. Applethe original
  3. Grapeabout as good a flavor fit

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