#mulligatawny

[morethansalad]

Instant Pot Mulligatawny Soup (Vegan)

[tea-delay]

cooking round-up: jan.–mar. 2025

japanese curry rice, served with fried egg and fukujinzuke

yu xiang eggplant (recipe: omnivore's cookbook)

oshiruko (recipe: just one cookbook)

baked kimchi rice with cheese (recipe: the woks of life)

instant pot chicken paprikash (recipe: lakes and lattes)

vegetarian mulligatawny (recipe: ministry of curry)

seri muka (recipe: sift & simmer)

rou zao fan (recipe: the woks of life)

edamame, tofu, and pickled mustard greens stir-fry (recipe: the woks of life)

[fattributes]

Vegan Mulligatawny

[mwittier]

Saffron irony.

In October, I had a bad accident. I fell off a ladder, broke three vertebrae, my breastbone, had five large lacerations on my head, cracked my skull and had a traumatic brain injury. I was unconscious for a couple of days. Spent a month and a half inpatient, between hospital and rehab facility.

I’m presently weaning off my back brace, walking around like me, but more slowly, and have no real cognitive damage, aside from no longer having a sense of smell, or a physical sense of hunger. I miss smell a lot; it returns to about 50% of patients within a year, and it’s a common loss from TBI. It makes it much harder to cook (I’m a good cook, or I was anyhow) and my sense of taste is obviously affected; most food tastes bland and grainy, and with sweet foods, the only part I taste is the sugary part. I can’t tell one soda flavor from another. Occasionally I’ll think I can detect a smell, but it’s just the memory of a smell that’s strongly associated with a thing, or an activity. It’s been quite merciful when cleaning chicken poop off my art studio floor, but otherwise, it’s a little grating.

I was very worried about writing, and visual art: I do both, and if I couldn’t, I’d feel useless. Both are a huge part of my identity, but I’m very fortunate in that neither were affected. (I’m tempted to type some absolute gibberish in here to indicate otherwise, but that’s just me, easily and darkly amused.) In general I am INSANELY fortunate in regard to how well and how quickly I’m healing. Truly, every day, I am just awash in gratitude and awe at how well I’m functioning. Also, the chickens love me just as much as ever. Or they love mixed field greens, but I’m happy being delusional in that one regard.

I spent about four minutes today, trying exasperatedly to open this tiny plastic container of saffron I’ve had for a long time, because I wanted to make some mulligatawny, and I wanted to see if it was still pungent. I finally got the thing open without spilling any (that shit’s expensive) and sniffed, then remembered I have no sense of smell. I laughed pretty hard. I can sniff a bottle of bleach and smell nothing at all; I’m gonna go ahead and say my saffron is JUST FIIIIINE.

Today I did the math. Treatment for my accident, from ambulance (a neighbor found me and called 911; I was unconscious and barely breathing) up until last week’s CT scan (I still have a blood clot near my brain) has come to a little over $270,000.00 My obligation personally is about $8,000 from last year and another new $2,000 so far this year (bad accident timing, insurance maximum-wise.)

If you had told 25 year old me that I was going to have an accident at 64, and that it would cost more than $300,000.00 to recover, I’d have to have given it some serious consideration. I mean, it’s not like 25 year old me gets to keep the $300,000.00, but still: it’s a lot of money. I’d probably have asked if I look 64 at the time of the accident (I was vain and pretty, and no, I don’t) and factored that in. Ironically, I was unconscious and then really loopy and demented for the first four or five days, so I didn’t really get a choice as far as spending the budget. Isn’t that kind of weird, that by virtue of having a pulse, you authorize expenditure? I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, just weird.

So. Mulligatawny, with triple the saffron, because I have it and probably won’t taste it otherwise. And now I have to make my studio into a Confused Hen Dormitory, because it’s going to be double digits below zero for a few nights. It’s all good, and if Miss Spoons would just stop scolding me, it’d be great.

[fruitpeels]

Mulligatawny●Namgemyeon●Oxtail●Pozole

A, B, C, D

E, F, G, H

I, J, K, L

[marryat92]

“Order some mulligatawny, they are famous for it”

The next morning, I lost no time in presenting my letter of introduction to Major Carbonnell. He lived in apartments on the first floor in St. James's Street, and I found him at breakfast, in a silk dressing gown. I had made up my mind that a little independence always carries with it an air of fashion. When I entered, therefore, I looked at him with a knowing air, and dropping the letter down on the table before him, said, “There's something for you to read, major; and, in the mean time, I'll refresh myself on this chair;” suiting the action to the word, I threw myself on a chair, amusing myself with tapping the sides of my boots with a small cane which I carried in my hand.

— Frederick Marryat, Japhet in Search of a Father

The illustrations by H.M. Brock do a wonderful job of capturing the fashionable, early 19th century world of Japhet, despite the artist being a young man in the 1890s. This is the most 'silver fork' of all Marryat novels, full of high society, and it's fitting that it has inspired me to produce the most exotic and complicated of my Marryat-themed cooking projects: Mulligatawny Soup.

Shortly after Japhet Newland drops in on the rakish Major Carbonnell at breakfast, the subject of dinner that evening comes up:

"Major Carbonnell,” replied I, “I have seen you but two minutes, and I have taken a particular fancy to you, in which I, no doubt, have proved my discrimination. Of course, you know that I have just returned from making a tour?"

“So I understand from his lordship's letter.  Mr. Newland, my time is at your service. Where are you staying?”

"At the Piazza."

“Very good; I will dine with you to-day; order some mulligatawny, they are famous for it. After dinner we will go to the theatre.”

Of course there are many recipes for mulligatawny soup, a classic of Anglo-Indian cuisine; I specifically wanted to make one that would be most similar to what Japhet and the Major might eat in London, in the 1820s-early 1830s time period.

I used the recipe for 'Mullaga-Tawny Soup' from the 1822 edition of The Cook's Oracle by William Kitchener, a book that was in print at least through the 1830s. The full text is available for download online. Kitchener was a polymath who boasted of his kitchen-tested recipes. His cookbook is typical for its era in that it assumes a fairly high degree of knowledge in the reader, but I'm impressed with it so far. Sometimes preparation hints and other useful information are buried in another section of the cookbook, but it is more user-friendly than other early 19th century cookbooks I have consulted.

The recipe for the soup (p. 291-292) is separate from the recipe for curry powder (p. 374-375). On the curry, the author asserts: "the flavour approximates to the Indian Powder so exactly, the most profound Palaticians have pronounced it a perfect copy of the original Curry Stuff."  An "East Indian friend" declared it was authentic, except that the ingredients are prepared differently in India. I used a base unit of one teaspoon instead of one ounce for the curry components (there are eight ingredients), it made the perfect quantity for the recipe!

I used veal for the soup, as Kitchener instructs, and since "breast of veal" is near-impossible to obtain I used veal spare ribs and boned them out. Lucky for me, I had purchased them frozen at a steep discount— not so lucky for me, it was very tedious and annoying to prep. If I make this again I will use chicken thighs —the recipe even suggests that "Fowls or Rabbits" can be substituted for the veal— but I went high-end in honour of Japhet.  Kitchener describes it as a “fashionable Soup” and suggests that the “outlandish” name is more enticing to a novelty-seeking Englishman than “the more familiar name of Curry Soup.”

If you make this at home and do not know how to add a flour slurry to thicken soup: make sure you look that part up online. I just dumped it in because Kitchener said so, not thinking, and had to whisk the soup to dissolve it. (It didn't hurt it, but it was unnecessarily difficult).

One thing that was quite eye-opening about The Cook's Oracle is the amount of recipes that are hot and spicy, including hot and spicy condiments. It's definitely not what I was expecting from an English cookbook of 200 years ago. There are many ways of enlivening bland fare.

For "those Palates which have been used to the extreme of Piquance," Kitchener recommends "the aid of the Whip and Spur that Students of long standing in the School of Good Living are generally so fond of enlivening their palate with, i.e. Cayenne and Garlick." Encouraged by this, I added an extra dash of cayenne (which is also in the curry) as I did the final seasoning of the soup. It was otherwise perfectly balanced in flavour and didn’t require adjustment.

[let-us-taco-bout-it]

[awesome-recipes101]

Mulligatawny Chicken Soup

4-6 servings

Mulligatawny soup originated in South India and is related to the soup Rasam. Mulligatawny means pepper water but this soup is much more than that and is really delicious.  The British, who colonized India, wanted a soup to go along with their meal so this soup was produced.  It has been modified to suit British tastes. Here is one version

Ingredients

2 tablespoons butter

1 tablespoon olive oil

2 cups onion, chopped

2 ribs of celery, chopped

1 cup baby carrots, sliced

2 Bay leaves

4 teaspoons curry powder

4 cups chicken broth or bouillon

1 teaspoon salt

1 large boneless, skinless chicken breast, cubed

1/3 cup uncooked rice

1 apple, peeled, cored and chopped

½ cup heavy whipping cream

Directions

In a large soup pot heat the butter and oil.  Add the onion, celery and carrots. Sauté for a few minutes.  Add the curry powder and Bay leaves and stir to coat the vegetables.

Pour in the chicken broth or bouillon and stir.  Reduce the heat and let the soup simmer for about ½ an hour.

Add the chicken, rice and apple.  Simmer for another 20 minutes or until the rice is done.  Remove the bay leaves.

Just before serving stir in the heavy cream and simmer for a few minutes until the cream is warm.

If you want the soup thicker mix 1 tablespoon of cornstarch and 1 tablespoon of water in a small bowl to make a slurry and add to the soup.  Cook for a few minutes until thickened.  (Adding the cornstarch directly to the soup will just result in it clumping up.)

Notes

To make the soup spicier add some sriracha sauce or cayenne pepper.

Use an apple that is not too tart or sweet. Do not use a red delicious apple as it is best suited to eating.