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Mulligatawney Soup

A curry‑flavored chicken soup thickened with flour, served with boiled Patna rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 10,172 recipes mention both. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Poach the chicken

  1. Place the chicken pieces with carrot, onion, celery, parsley, thyme, bay leaf, cloves, and mace in a stewpan. Cover with veal broth.

  2. Once the chicken is nearly cooked, strain the broth into a basin and cool the chicken pieces in spring water.

  3. Trim the chicken neatly and place in a soup pot.

Make the curry base

  1. In a stewpan, melt butter and add sliced onions, carrot, and celery. Fry over low heat until onions are light brown.

  2. Stir in enough flour to thicken the soup, then add curry powder and curry paste.

  3. Gradually mix in the reserved broth and additional veal consommé as needed.

Finish and serve

  1. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to clarify the soup. Strain through a tammy into a puree and pour over the chicken pieces.

  2. Half an hour before serving, heat the soup, stirring until it boils. Simmer gently for 10 minutes.

  3. Skim the soup, check seasoning, and serve with boiled Patna 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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together10,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Celery + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together6,805 recipes

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

  5. Clove + macetop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together8,199 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Chickens
Provides the meat for the soup, cooked gently until tender in the broth.
Butter
Fat for frying the onions, carrot and celery, adding richness and flavor.
Flour
Thickens the soup so it has body rather than being thin.
Curry powder
Supplies the main spiced aroma that defines the soup.
Onions
Browned slowly in butter to add sweetness and depth to the base.
Veal broth
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavor of the soup.

The step that matters

Frying the onions until light brown. Frying over low heat gently softens the onions and builds sweet, mellow flavor without scorching. Burnt onions turn bitter and would spoil the whole soup.

Flavor stand-ins for the mace

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

  1. Marjorambetter flavor fit
  2. Rosemarybetter flavor fit
  3. Basilbetter flavor fit
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, carrot, onion, celery, parsley, thyme, clove. 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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