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Thick Mulligatawny Soup

A thick soup made with butter, flour, curry powder, onion, carrot, apple, herbs, celery seeds, stock, Bovril, lemon juice, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery 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 the base

  1. Melt the butter in a pot.

  2. Add the sliced onion and carrot, and fry until just beginning to brown.

  3. Stir in the curry powder and a good squeeze of lemon juice, cooking over low heat for 4-5 minutes.

  4. Add the flour and stir well.

Simmer the soup

  1. Mix in the chopped apple, tied herbs, celery seeds, and stock.

  2. Stir until boiling, then add the Bovril and a little salt.

  3. Simmer gently for 45-60 minutes.

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

  5. 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. Carrot + celerytop 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. Onion + celerytop 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
Melts to carry the onion and carrot and begin the fat base of the soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup as it cooks with the fat, giving it body.
Curry powder
Provides the main spiced, aromatic flavour of the soup.
Onion
Softens and browns slightly to build sweetness and savoury depth.
Apple
Adds a mild sweetness and fruity acidity that balances the curry spices.
Stock
Forms the liquid base of the soup and carries all the flavours.

The step that matters

Stirring in the flour. Flour added to hot fat must be stirred well so it cooks into a smooth roux without lumps. Cooking it briefly removes raw starch taste and lets it thicken the stock evenly once liquid is added.

Flavor stand-ins for the apple

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