Name: Mulligatawny Soup
Ingredients: 1 quart chicken, veal, or calf's-head broth; 1 small onion, minced; a pinch of mace; ½ cup soaked rice; juice of 1 lemon; 1 tablespoon brown roux; 1 teaspoon curry powder; salt to taste; 1 teacup strained tomato juice

Why it works: Chicken and rice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 4,569 recipes mention both. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓

Mulligatawny Soup

Ingredients

Directions

In a pot, combine the broth, minced onion, mace, and soaked rice.
Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer until the rice is tender.
Stir in the lemon juice, brown roux, curry powder, and strained tomato juice.
Season with salt to taste and serve hot.

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.

Chicken + ricetop 2% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together4,569 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
Rice + tomatotop 3% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together2,990 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Chicken + tomatotop 3% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together6,027 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Chicken + oniontop 4% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together17,808 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).
Onion + tomatotop 4% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together20,622 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

Soaked rice: Softens as it simmers, adding body and thickening the broth slightly.
Brown roux: Flour cooked in fat, thickening the broth and adding a toasted, nutty depth.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the spiced broth.
Strained tomato juice: Adds acidity, color, and savory sweetness to the broth.
Curry powder: Provides the warm, spiced aroma that defines the soup.

Flavor stand-ins for the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, onion, rice, lemon, tomato):

Garlicbetter flavor fit
Corianderbetter flavor fit
Celerybetter flavor fit
Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, onion, rice, lemon, tomato. 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.