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Curry Soup

A spiced meat soup with curry leaves, onions, and a thickened broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Fenugreek and flour work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and 53 recipes mention both. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Put the meat trimmings in a stew pan with 2 quarts of water, black pepper, and allspice.

  2. Bring to a boil, skim clean, and let it boil gently for 1 hour.

  3. Strain the broth.

Build the soup

  1. Fry some meat bits in butter with sliced onions until browned.

  2. Add the broth to the fried meat and onions, skim, and let it simmer for 30 minutes.

  3. Mix curry powder, flour or arrowroot, and salt with enough water to thicken the soup.

  4. Add the thickening mixture to the soup and simmer until the meat is tender.

  5. Add dried curry leaves for flavor before serving.

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. Fenugreek + flourtop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together53 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Turmeric + fenugreektop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together229 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turmeric + coriandertop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,252 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Pepper + allspicetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Turmeric + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together4,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Meat trimmings (in the method)
Give the broth its savory, meaty body as they simmer.
Onions
Sweeten and deepen flavor as they brown in butter.
Curry powder
Supplies the main spiced aroma and flavor of the soup.
Flour or arrowroot
Thickens the soup so it has a fuller, smoother body.

The step that matters

Adding the thickening mixture. Flour or arrowroot must be mixed with water first so it disperses without lumps. Once stirred in, it thickens as the soup simmers, so it needs a gentle simmer rather than a hard boil to stay smooth.

Flavor stand-ins for the fenugreek

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turmeric, pepper, coriander, mutton, corn, allspice, butter):

  1. Cuminbetter flavor fit
  2. Gingerbetter flavor fit
  3. Cardamombetter flavor fit
  4. Fenugreekthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turmeric, pepper, coriander, mutton, corn, allspice, butter. 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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