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Mulligatawny Soup

A stew of veal, onions, rice, and curry powder simmered in stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,433 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Mulligatawny Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine the chopped veal and stock in a stewpan.

  2. Add the chopped onions, rice, and curry powder.

  3. Stew for 4 to 5 hours until well cooked.

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 + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Veal + ricetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,119 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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 savory flavor into the stock, giving the soup body.
Stock
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavors and cooks the other ingredients.
Onions
Soften during stewing and add sweetness and aromatic depth to the soup.
Rice
Absorbs liquid and softens, thickening the soup slightly as it cooks.
Curry powder
Adds warm spice aroma and flavor that infuses into the stewed liquid.

The step that matters

Stew for 4 to 5 hours until well cooked. Long, gentle simmering is needed to draw gelatin from the veal knuckle and fully soften the rice and onions. Stopping early leaves a thin soup with firm grains and less body.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, rice. 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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