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Curry or Mullaga-tawny Soup

A veal soup simmered with black peppercorns, allspice, onions, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,270 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Curry or Mullaga-tawny Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Cut the veal into pieces about 2 inches by 1 inch.

  2. Place the trimmings in a stew-pan with water and spices.

  3. Bring to a boil, skim, and boil for 1.5 hours.

  4. Strain the broth.

Finish the soup

  1. In a separate pan, fry the veal pieces and onions in butter until browned.

  2. Add the strained broth to the veal and onions.

  3. Bring to a boil, skim, and let it simmer for 30 minutes.

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. Allspice + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,270 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Veal + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,841 recipes

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

  4. Veal + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,381 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Allspice + buttertop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,325 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

Breast of veal
Provides the meat and, with its trimmings, the flavor of the broth.
Onions
Add sweetness and savory depth when browned in butter.
Butter
Carries browning in the pan, adding richness and roasted flavor to the veal and onions.

The step that matters

Fry the veal and onions until browned. Browning through the Maillard reaction builds deep savory flavor that plain simmering cannot create, so the pieces should be well colored before the broth goes in.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Allspicethe original

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