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Curry, or Mulluga-Tawny Soup

A veal curry soup made with veal, onions, curry powder, flour, and spices, simmered until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,395 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Curry, or Mulluga-Tawny Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. In a stewpan, combine veal trimmings and water. Add black pepper and allspice.

  2. Bring to a boil, skim off any foam, and let it boil for 1.5 hours.

  3. Strain the broth and set aside.

Brown and simmer the soup

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

  2. Add the broth to the pan and bring to a boil. Skim off any foam.

  3. Reduce heat and let it simmer for 30 minutes.

  4. Mix curry powder, flour, and salt with a little cold water, then add to the soup.

  5. Simmer gently until the veal is tender.

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. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Allspice + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,302 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 gelatin-rich body that flavours the soup and becomes tender with simmering.
Onions
Soften and brown in butter, adding sweetness and savoury depth to the soup base.
Curry powder
Supplies the main spiced aroma and flavour that defines the soup.
Flour
Mixed with cold water and stirred in, it thickens the soup slightly.

The step that matters

Mixing flour and curry powder with cold water before adding. Flour stirred in dry or added hot clumps and stays raw-tasting; a smooth cold slurry disperses evenly, and the starch then thickens the liquid as it heats.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, corn, pepper, allspice, butter, flour):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, corn, pepper, allspice, butter, flour. 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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