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Potato Mulligatawny Soup

A creamy potato and rice soup flavored with curry powder and veal stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 9,019 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Potato Mulligatawny Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup base

  1. Chop the onions.

  2. Fry the onions in butter until soft but not brown.

  3. Add the curry powder and fry for a few more minutes.

  4. Mix the potato flour with the veal stock and add to the curry mixture.

  5. Stir over heat until boiling.

  6. Skim and season well.

  7. Add the mashed potatoes and simmer for 30 minutes, skimming occasionally.

Cook the rice

  1. Rinse the rice in a sieve.

  2. Shake the rice in a cloth to remove dust.

  3. Fry the rice in butter for 5-6 minutes, stirring constantly.

  4. Add boiling water to cover the rice by 3 inches.

  5. Season the rice with salt.

  6. Boil gently for 15 minutes without stirring.

  7. Cover and steam for another 15 minutes.

  8. Fluff the rice with a fork.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove excess fat from the soup.

  2. Pass the soup through a fine sieve.

  3. Reheat the soup.

  4. Stir in the cream and a small piece of butter.

  5. Add the rice to the soup.

  6. Serve with small fried potato croutons.

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. Onion + potatotop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together9,019 recipes

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together41,494 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Potato + ricetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together827 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  4. Onion + ricetop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together9,990 recipes

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

  5. Butter + potatotop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together6,445 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

What each ingredient does

Onions
Softened in butter, they build the sweet aromatic base of the soup.
Curry powder
Frying it in fat blooms its spices, giving the soup its characteristic aroma.
Potato flour
Thickens the stock so the soup has body and a smooth texture.
Mashed potatoes
Add starch and body, further thickening and enriching the soup.
Rice
Adds a soft grain texture to the finished soup.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, mellow mouthfeel at the end.

The step that matters

Boil the rice without stirring, then steam it covered. Stirring releases surface starch and makes rice gummy, while covered steaming finishes the grains gently so they stay separate and tender.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, potato, flour, veal, rice, cream, fried potato):

  1. Onionthe original
  2. Asparagusabout as good a flavor fit
  3. Leekabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, potato, flour, veal, rice, cream, fried potato. 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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