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Mulligatawny Soup

A hearty soup of mutton, vegetables, and curry, simmered for hours and finished with lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 8,053 recipes mention both. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Mulligatawny Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the fat from the mutton and melt it in a saucepan.

  2. Prepare the apple and vegetables by slicing them.

  3. Once there is enough liquid fat, remove the fat pieces.

  4. Add the vegetables and cook them for about 15 minutes.

Make the soup

  1. Sprinkle in the flour and curry powder and fry for a few minutes.

  2. Add the mutton pieces, 1 teaspoon of salt, the bouquet garni, and water.

  3. Bring to a boil and skim off any scum that rises.

  4. Cover and cook gently for about 3 hours.

  5. Strain the soup.

  6. Rub the meat through a wire sieve back into the saucepan.

Finish and serve

  1. Reheat the soup.

  2. Add the lemon juice and season to taste.

  3. Serve, with well-cooked 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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Carrot + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Onion + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together21,599 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

Mutton
Provides the meat and rich flavour that forms the body of the soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup slightly as it fries with the fat and curry powder.
Curry powder
Supplies the spiced, aromatic flavour that defines the soup.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, spiced broth.
Apple
Adds subtle sweetness that balances the curry spice.

The step that matters

Skimming the scum. Scum that rises during the first boil contains impurities and coagulated protein; removing it keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting over the long simmer.

Flavor stand-ins for the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, onion, carrot, turnip, parsley, thyme, flour):

  1. Lemonbetter flavor fit
  2. Limebetter flavor fit
  3. Orangebetter flavor fit
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, onion, carrot, turnip, parsley, thyme, flour. 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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