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Mulligatawny Soup

A spiced Indian soup with apple, onion, carrot, curry powder, and stock, served with rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and 21,599 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Mulligatawny Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan and fry the sliced apple, onion, and carrot until softened.

  2. Sprinkle the curry powder and flour over the vegetables and brown them.

  3. Pour in the boiling stock and stir until it comes to a boil.

Simmer and finish

  1. Simmer gently for one hour, then strain through a sieve back into the saucepan.

  2. Bring to a boil again, then season with salt and lemon juice.

  3. Serve in a warm tureen with well-boiled 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. Onion + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together21,599 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + ricetop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,351 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,350 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Apple + buttertop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together8,692 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

Stock
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavour and body of the soup.
Curry powder
Supplies the spice and aroma that define the soup, bloomed in fat to deepen it.
Flour
Browns with the curry powder and thickens the soup slightly.
Butter
Fat that softens the vegetables and carries the spices' aroma.
Apple
Adds gentle sweetness that balances the sharpness of the curry spices.
Onion
Softens into the base, adding savoury depth and body.

The step that matters

Browning the curry powder and flour. Frying spices and flour in fat toasts them and removes raw, dusty flavour. If they burn, the soup turns bitter, so stir constantly over moderate heat.

Flavor stand-ins for the lemon

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

  1. Grapebetter flavor fit
  2. Coconutbetter flavor fit
  3. Mangobetter flavor fit
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, onion, carrot, flour, butter, 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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