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Mulligatawny Soup

A soup made with rabbit or fowl, onion, mulligatawny paste, stock, thickened with flour and butter, finished with lemon, cream, and served with rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and 41,516 recipes mention both. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Mulligatawny Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Wash and dry the rabbit or fowl, then cut it into small pieces.

  2. Fry the pieces in butter until light brown, then drain on paper.

Make the soup

  1. Slice the onion and fry it in the same butter with the curry powder, being careful not to burn it.

  2. Transfer the onion mixture to a stewpan, add the stock, and bring to a boil for 30 minutes.

  3. Thicken the soup with flour and butter, then strain it through a fine sieve.

  4. Add the chicken or rabbit, lemon juice, and salt, then simmer gently for another 30 minutes.

  5. Skim off the fat from the surface before serving.

Serve

  1. Pour ½ cup of cream into the tureen, then add the soup.

  2. Serve with boiled white rice on the side.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together10,433 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together4,366 recipes

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

  4. Rabbit + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together252 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour share little aroma chemistry, yet 124,287 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Rabbit or fowl
Provides the meat, which becomes tender during the long simmer in the stock.
Butter
Browns the meat and onion, adding richness and a toasted flavour to the base.
Onion
Forms the aromatic base of the soup, sweetening as it cooks gently.
Mulligatawny paste or curry powder
Supplies the spiced, aromatic flavour that defines the soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup, giving it body when cooked with butter.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, mellow texture to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Frying the onion with the curry powder. Curry powder scorches easily over direct heat, and burnt spices turn bitter and dark. Cooking it gently in butter releases its aroma without harshness, which sets the soup's flavour.

Flavor stand-ins for the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, butter, onion, flour, cream, rice):

  1. Coconutbetter flavor fit
  2. Avocadobetter flavor fit
  3. Raisinbetter flavor fit
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, butter, onion, flour, cream, rice. 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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