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Mulligatawny Soup

A hearty beef soup with liver, root vegetables, leeks, celery, onions, and bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 10,172 recipes mention both. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Mulligatawny Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Set 4 quarts of water with 6 pounds of beef near the fire and skim it.

  2. When nearly boiling, add 1½ tablespoons of coarse sea salt, ½ pound of liver, 2 carrots, 4 turnips, 8 leeks, 1 head of celery, and 2 onions (one burnt with a clove in each).

  3. Skim again and simmer for 4 to 5 hours, adding cold water as needed.

Serve

  1. Remove some fat, place slices of bread in a tureen, and layer half of the vegetables and half of the broth over it.

  2. Serve the meat separately with the remaining vegetables.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together10,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Turnip + leektop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Carrot + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together8,001 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Beef + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together17,091 recipes

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

  5. Turnip + celerytop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together4,417 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Gives the broth its rich meaty flavor and body as it simmers for hours.
Liver
Adds depth and a strong savory flavor to the broth.
Leeks
Contribute mild onion-like sweetness and aroma to the broth.
Onions
Add sweetness and savory depth; the burnt one adds darker, roasted flavor.
Bread
Soaks up the broth and vegetables in the tureen, giving the soup body.

The step that matters

Skim again and simmer for 4 to 5 hours, adding cold water as needed.. Skimming removes foam and excess fat that would cloud and greasily flavor the broth. Long gentle simmering extracts flavor from the beef and bones, and adding cold water as needed keeps the liquid level up without a rolling boil that would make the broth cloudy.

Flavor stand-ins for the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, liver, carrot, turnip, leek, celery, onion):

  1. Parsleybetter flavor fit
  2. Thymebetter flavor fit
  3. Marjorambetter flavor fit
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, liver, carrot, turnip, leek, celery, onion. 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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