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Mulligatawny Soup

A spiced soup made with onion, apple, butter, coconut, curry, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and coconut are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and 3,467 recipes mention both. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Mulligatawny Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and finely chop the onion and apple.

  2. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

Make the soup

  1. Add the chopped onion and apple and fry until golden brown.

  2. Mix the crème‑de‑riz, curry powder, and curry paste with a little cold stock.

  3. Add the mixture to the onion and apple.

  4. Cook for another 10 minutes.

  5. Add the remaining stock, chutney, desiccated coconut, and salt.

  6. Bring to a boil and cook for 30 minutes.

  7. Strain the soup through a fine sieve.

  8. Return the strained soup to the saucepan.

  9. Heat until boiling.

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. Butter + coconuttop 12% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Apple + coconuttop 12% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together274 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylethanol (rose, floral).

  3. Onion + coconuttop 13% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,831 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  4. Butter + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together8,706 recipes

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

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Onion
Provides sweetness and savoury base flavour as it softens and browns in the butter.
Cooking apple
Adds sweetness and acidity that balance the curry spices and break down into the soup.
Curry powder
Supplies the main spice aroma and warm flavour of the soup.
Butter
Carries fat for frying the onion and apple, adding richness and browning.
Chutney
Adds sweet-sour fruitiness and depth to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Frying the onion and apple until golden brown. Browning builds deeper, sweeter flavour through caramelisation and the Maillard reaction. Pale or under-cooked onion leaves the soup tasting flat and raw, while over-browning can make it bitter.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

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

  1. Sweet potatobetter flavor fit
  2. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  3. Potatobetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, apple, coconut. 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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