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Mulligatawny Soup

A spiced rabbit and vegetable soup with mulligatawny paste, curry powder, and rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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

Prepare the base

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

  2. Add the bacon, onions, carrot, apple, and bouquet garni; fry for 5 minutes.

  3. Mix the curry powder, mulligatawny paste, and cornflour with a little stock to form a smooth paste.

  4. Stir the paste into the stewpan, add the remaining stock, and bring to a boil.

  5. Reduce heat and let it simmer.

Cook and strain

  1. Add the rabbit joints and gently boil for 1.5 hours.

  2. Remove the rabbit pieces and strain the soup through a fine sieve.

  3. Return the soup to a clean saucepan and heat until hot.

Serve

  1. Cut the rabbit meat into 1-inch pieces and place in a hot tureen.

  2. Pour the boiling soup over the rabbit meat.

  3. Cook the rice according to package instructions and serve it alongside the soup.

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. Rabbit + ricetop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together252 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  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

Wild rabbit
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender during the long gentle simmer.
Cornflour
Thickens the stock into a smooth, body-rich soup as it heats.
Butter
Carries the curry spices and softens the vegetables at the start, adding richness.
Onions
Build the flavour base and sweetness as they soften in fat.
Curry powder
Supplies the warm, aromatic spice character that defines the soup.
Bacon
Adds smoky, savoury fat that deepens the flavour of the stock.

The step that matters

Forming the smooth paste before adding the stock. Cornflour clumps if it meets hot liquid undispersed. Mixing it first with a little cold stock lets the starch granules separate, so it thickens the soup evenly instead of forming lumps.

Flavor stand-ins for the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, carrot, butter, rabbit, 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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