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Mullagatawny, or Currie Broth

A veal broth with chicken, curry powder, lemon, and cream served over boiled rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Mullagatawny, or Currie Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Make 2 quarts of strong veal broth and season with onions, parsley, salt, and pepper.

  2. Strain the broth and add the chicken pieces.

Cook and finish

  1. Stir in the curry powder and boil until the chicken is tender.

  2. Before serving, add lemon juice and stir in the cream.

  3. Serve with boiled rice.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  4. Chicken + ricetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,769 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  5. Onion + chickentop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main protein, which becomes tender as it simmers in the broth.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture to the finished broth.
Curry powder
Supplies the dish's spiced aroma and flavour as it cooks in the broth.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich broth and balances the cream.
Veal broth
Forms the liquid base that gives the dish its body and savoury depth.

The step that matters

Adding the cream and lemon juice before serving. Acid can cause dairy cream to curdle when heated, so the lemon juice should be stirred in off the heat or just before serving and the cream added without boiling, keeping the sauce smooth.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, parsley, pepper, chicken, lemon, cream, rice):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, parsley, pepper, chicken, lemon, cream, rice. 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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