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Thick Mulligatawny Soup

A thick curry-flavored soup with vegetables, apple, herbs, and Bovril.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 10,172 recipes mention both. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Thick Mulligatawny Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

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

  2. Slice the vegetables and fry them in the butter until they begin to brown.

Make the soup

  1. Add the curry powder and a squeeze of lemon juice, stirring for 4-5 minutes.

  2. Stir in the flour, then add the chopped apple, herbs, and celery seeds tied in muslin.

  3. Pour in the stock and stir until boiling.

  4. Add the Bovril and a little salt, then simmer gently for 45-60 minutes.

  5. Adjust seasoning with more salt and lemon juice if necessary.

  6. If the soup is too thick, add more stock or water.

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. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together10,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Celery + lemontop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Onion + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together21,599 recipes

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

  4. Celery + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together18,506 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Carrot + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,350 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Carries the frying of the vegetables and gives a rich, savoury base.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth, body-rich soup as it cooks.
Onion
Browns in the butter to build sweetness and savoury depth.
Apple
Adds subtle sweetness and acidity that balances the curry spices.
Curry powder
Provides the warm, aromatic spice character that defines the soup.
Stock
Forms the liquid base and carries the flavour of the whole soup.

The step that matters

Frying the vegetables until they begin to brown. Browning the onion and carrot in butter builds deeper, roasted savoury flavour through the Maillard reaction. Pale vegetables give a flatter, less complex soup.

Flavor stand-ins for the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, celery, onion, carrot, lemon):

  1. Orangebetter flavor fit
  2. Limebetter flavor fit
  3. Avocadobetter flavor fit
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, celery, onion, carrot, lemon. 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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