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Mullagatawny Soup

A hearty veal and rice soup flavored with curry powder, apples, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Mullagatawny Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.

  2. Fry the sliced onions until nicely browned.

  3. Add the curry powder, chopped apples, and ½ lb of washed rice; stir until the butter is absorbed.

Simmer and finish

  1. Break the bones and cut the veal into small pieces; add to the saucepan with the water, vegetables, and seasonings.

  2. Boil for three hours, stirring occasionally to prevent burning.

  3. Rub the mixture through a wire sieve and return the soup to the saucepan.

  4. Add a lump of sugar, lemon juice, and salt to taste; boil for five minutes.

  5. Serve hot, with boiled rice in a separate dish.

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 their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Knuckle of veal
Gives the soup its meaty body and rich flavour as it simmers for hours.
Curry powder
Provides the defining spiced aroma and flavour of the soup.
Butter
Carries the curry powder and onions, helping spices release their flavour.
Rice
Absorbs liquid and thickens the soup as it cooks, adding body.
Onions
Browning builds sweet, savoury depth as the base for the soup.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, spiced broth.

The step that matters

Stirring during the three-hour boil. Rice, apples and meat solids settle and stick to the base of the pan over a long simmer, so scorching can make the soup taste burnt. Regular stirring keeps the heat even and the flavour clean.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, butter, onion, rice, carrot, turnip, parsley):

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Avocadofits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, butter, onion, rice, carrot, turnip, parsley. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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