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Mullagatawny Soup

A veal and rice soup with curry, apples, and vegetables, finished with lemon and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Mullagatawny Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.

  2. Fry the sliced onions until nicely browned.

  3. Add the curry powder to the saucepan.

  4. Add the chopped apples to the saucepan.

  5. Add the 2 oz of washed rice to the saucepan.

  6. Stir until the butter is absorbed.

Simmer

  1. Break the bones and cut the veal into small pieces.

  2. Add the veal to the saucepan with water, vegetables, and seasonings.

  3. Boil for 3 hours, stirring occasionally to prevent burning.

Strain and finish

  1. Rub the mixture through a wire sieve.

  2. Return the soup to the saucepan.

  3. Add a lump of sugar, lemon juice, and salt to taste.

  4. Boil for 5 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve hot, with boiled rice in a separate dish.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Veal knuckle
Releases flavour and gelatin from bones and meat, giving the soup body and richness.
Rice
Its starch thickens the soup and gives it a fuller texture.
Curry powder
Provides the spiced aroma and flavour that define the soup.
Onions
Browning during frying builds sweet, savoury depth in the base.
Apples
Break down during simmering to add mild sweetness and body.
Butter
Fat that carries curry flavour and helps onions brown in the pan.

The step that matters

Boil for 3 hours, stirring occasionally. Starch from the rice and proteins from the bones can stick and scorch on the base of the pan. Stirring keeps heat even and prevents a burnt taste spreading through the soup.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Avocadofits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, butter, onion, rice, carrot, turnip, parsley. 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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