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Mulligatawny Soup

A spiced chicken and vegetable soup with curry, mace, and pepper berries, finished with flour and tomatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 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 base

  1. In a pot, heat the butter or beef dripping over medium heat.

  2. Add the curry powder, onion, mace, carrot, cloves, celery, pepper berries, and apple. Cook until browned.

  3. Stir in the chicken. Cook until browned.

  4. Add the flour and seasonings. Gradually pour in the stock and tomatoes.

Simmer and strain

  1. Simmer for 1 hour.

  2. Press the mixture through a strainer.

  3. Reserve the chicken.

Finish and serve

  1. Return the chicken to the strained soup. Season with salt and pepper.

  2. Serve with boiled rice.

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. Mace + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together8,199 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Celery + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together16,001 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Carrot + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together14,555 recipes

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

  5. Clove + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together13,144 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter or beef dripping
Adds fat for browning the vegetables and gives the soup a rich flavor.
Onion
Browns and builds a sweet, savory aromatic base for the soup.
Flour
Thickens the stock as it cooks, giving the soup body.
Chicken
Provides savory meat flavor and protein to the soup.
Apple
Adds subtle sweetness and acidity that balances the curry spices.
Tomatoes
Adds acidity and body, rounding out the spiced stock.

The step that matters

Browning the vegetables and chicken. Browning builds deep flavor through the Maillard reaction. Pale vegetables or chicken give a flatter, less savory soup, so cook until golden before adding liquid.

Flavor stand-ins for the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, onion, mace, carrot, clove, celery, pepper):

  1. Lemonbetter flavor fit
  2. Orangeabout as good a flavor fit
  3. Limeabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, mace, carrot, clove, celery, pepper. 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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