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Curry, or Mullaga-Tawny Soup

A veal curry soup made by simmering veal with water, pepper, 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

Make the broth

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

  2. Place the trimmings in a stew‑pan with water, black pepper, and allspice.

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

  4. Strain the broth.

Brown the veal and onions

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

Combine

  1. Combine the fried veal and onions with the strained broth.

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

Veal
Provides the meat and connective tissue that give the broth body and savoury flavour as it simmers.
Onions
Browning in butter develops sweetness and aroma that carry into the finished soup.
Butter
Conducts heat for frying and helps the veal and onions brown evenly.

The step that matters

Browning the veal and onions. Browning relies on the Maillard reaction, which needs a dry surface and enough heat. Pale, steamed meat lacks the deep roasted flavour that the finished soup depends on.

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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