Mulligatawny Soup

Mulligatawny Soup is a traditional Anglo-Indian recipe from the 1860s for a classic spiced soup of chicken served in a home-made beef stock flavoured with Bengali-style spices. The full recipe is presented here and I hope you enjoy this classic Anglo-Indian version of: Mulligatawny Soup.

prep time

20 minutes

cook time

100 minutes

Total Time:

120 minutes

Serves:

4–6

Rating:

Tags : Curry Spice Recipes Beef Recipes Chicken Recipes Fowl Recipes Fusion Recipes British Recipes

This is a traditional Anglo-Indian recipe redacted from the volume THE INDIAN COOKERY BOOK: A Practical Handbook to The Kitchen in India (author unknown), published by: WYMAN & CO., HARE STREET CALCUTTA circa 1869.
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Original Recipe

108.—Mulligatawny Soup

Take a shin of beef, cut it up small, wash it thoroughly, and boil with pepper and salt in sufficient water to well cover the meat. Let it boil over a brisk fire, taking away the black scum; add a little cold water, and skim off the white scum; then reduce the fire, and allow the soup to simmer until it somewhat thickens; strain the soup, cut away all the fat, season with soup herbs, and add more pepper and salt if necessary. Give it a good boil up, and then clear it with the white of an egg well beaten up, after which add a tbspful of Lea & Perrin's Worcestershire sauce, and half a wineglassful of sherry.

Prepare a shin of beef soup as above, omitting the sauce, wine, and white of egg; set the soup aside. Take a full-sized curry chicken; cut it up into sixteen or eighteen pieces, and wash them thoroughly. Warm a pot and melt it into two chittacks or four ounces of ghee; fry in it some finely-sliced onions, and set aside. Then fry in the melted ghee the following condiments, &c.:—Four tspfuls of ground onions, one tspful of ground turmeric, one tspful of ground chilies, half a tspful of ground ginger, a quarter of a tspful of ground garlic, half a tspful of roasted and ground coriander-seed, and a quarter of a tspful of roasted and ground cumin-seed.

Sprinkle a little water over these while frying; then add the cut-up chicken with two tspfuls of salt. When nearly brown, add one chittack or two ounces of roasted and ground poppy-seeds; pour in the beef soup, add the fried onion and half a dozen of the kurreah fool leaves, close the pot, and allow the whole to simmer over a slow fire until the chicken be perfectly tender. Serve up hot, with limes cut in slices on a separate plate.

Modern Redaction

Ingredients

For the Beef Stock:
1 shin of beef, meat cut int small pieces
salt, to taste
1 tsp black peppercorns
2 tbsp herbs, finely chopped

For the Soup:
1 oven-ready chicken, cut into 16 serving pieces
120g ghee
2 onions, finely sliced
4 tsp onions, ground or pounded to a paste
1 tsp ground turmeric
1 tsp ground chillies
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground garlic
1/2 tsp roasted and ground coriander seeds
1/4 tsp toasted and ground cumin seeds
1 1/2 tsp salt
60g roasted and ground poppy seeds
6 curry leaves
lime wedges, to accompany

Method:

For the beef stock, combine the beef and black peppercorns in a pan. Season to taste with salt, then pour over enough water to cover the meat. Bring to a boil and skim away all the scum from the surface. Add 100ml cold water and skim off any more scum. Reduce to a simmer and cook gently for about 40 minutes, or until the stock thickens a little. Turn the resultant soup into a sieve and strain the liquid. Adjust the seasonings to taste and stir in the herbs. Make up to 1.5l with water and set aside.

Melt the ghee in a pan, add the onions and fry for about 6 minutes, or until nicely browned. Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside. Stir the ground onions and spices into the ghee remaining in the pan and fry until browned and aromatic. Add the chicken pieces when nearly browned sprinkle over a little water and stir in the ground poppy seeds.

Pour in the beef soup and add the fried onions back to the pot along with the curry leaves. Cover with a tight-fitting lid and stew gently for about 60 minutes, or until the chicken pieces are completely tender. Serve hot, ladled into warmed soup bowls and accompanied by lime wedges.

Find more Victorian Recipes Here and more Curry Recipes Here. For the original version of The Indian Cookery book see my The Indian Cookery Book main page.