Hello,
Just wondering if anyone knows the recipe for this Indian / Sri Lankan dish? My Mum who died many years ago used to make it and being a teenager who never went near the kitchen I never bothered to watch what she was doing ( boy am I sorry now).Now of course I want to taste it again. I have tried to make it but it is not the same as I am unsure of the quantities.
I do remember that it was spicy but not really chilli hot, had a hint of coconut and was served with noodle or rice and we usually had it with fresh lemon juice squeezed over with and sprinkled with fresh coriander.
I know this is a long shot as it may have been something my mum concocted (she was a really good cook) but if anyone know of the recipe I will be very grateful.
Many thanks
JL
I know its probably nothing like it but at least one English food company (with a few varieties,well 57)... make Mulligatawny (spelling?) soup and its like a sort of mild curried version of beef or oxtail soup.
Steve
I know it is a Srilankan dish. I have eaten it but not made it, yet! Sorry, can't help.
Mamta
A quick web search suggests its an "Anglo-Indian" dish thats hot and spicy...
Different sites mention different things -
A warming soup...
Spicy soup...
dish with coconut milk...
Red Lentils....
Apples...
Potatoes...
Carrots...
Vegetable broth base with lentils and spice...
Good Lord! They can't all be right! I guess everyone makes their own version!
Petra
As is often the case, each person makes their own version and sometimes even one person makes different versions of the same thing !
(I know I do.... sometimes you make your quick version, sometimes you make the long version..sometimes you find a new or better technique and change again...)
Thanks to all for the input. I know now how to spell it and that it is more likely to be a Sri Lankan or Anglo Indian dish. As I live in Australia the '57 vairieties' of soup which it is labelled under in the UK is not available in our normal run-of-the-mill supermarkets. May have better luck in the British Import Stores.
I will keep researching and in the meantime reminisce.
Regards
JL
That companies .co.uk website has the soup listed as
"Mulligatawny Beef Curry" soup
How interesting that someone actually recalls someone making this. Like Steve, my only memory is of a tinned variety in my childhood in Scotland( I loved it!).
Madhur Jaffrey's 1982 book (Indian Cookery) has a recipe for chicken mulligatawny soup, which has a base of pureed red split lentils.
She says that it's Anglo-Indian in origin.
She also says that there are hundreds of recipes called 'mulligatwany soup' in India, all slightly different.
I think I'm going to have a go at it!
Phil
Red lentils ?.. I wonder if that was what made it so thick?...I don't remember a coconut taste in the tinned version...
Think I'm going to have to go and look on a tin next time I'm out shopping.
There was no coconut in the 57 varieties version, as I recall (from a very long time ago: I'm now 52)
But I'm intruiged by the idea of making this a chicken noodle or chicken rice soup.
Phil
That will be good JL. I will have a look around and ask people too, if they have a recipe.
Mamta
Dear all,
I tried the Madhur Jaffrey recipe for chicken mulligatawny soup.
It has split red lentils in it, which are yellow, not red, when cooked (that was news to me). It also has diced potatoes. You then puree all that and add it to the chicken stock and spices. You add lots of lemon juice. My wife loved it!
But not me. I have decided that I do not like pureed lentils (I don't puree the yellow split peas for chicken dansak: I don't like the thick custard-type texture) , so I won't be doing that recipe again.
I invented a second version today: a soup based on a chicken stock, Indian spices (cumin, coriander, but also, perhaps mistakenly, home-made garam masala), tomatoes, thin strips of chicken, and diced potatoes. I also added tiny bits of noodles, but this, added to potatoes, made for a soup which was perhaps too dense.
Phil
Hi Phil,
Thanks for trying Madhur Jaffreys recipe..... Personally I do not remember it being with lentils or potatoes. I suppose the recipe despends on the region one comes from in India/Sri Lanka.
I have found a recipe which I have tried over the weekend and it does remind me of what mother used to make:)
It is from Charmaine Solomon ( who has a number of recipes books) It is a Sri Lankan dish from her 'The Complete Asian Cookbook:
Serves 6-8
Mulligatwany Chicken
1 steaming chicken
8-10 cups water
2 teaspoons salt
1/2 tsp black peppercorns
few celery leaves
2 onions
4 whole cloves
1 tbsp corianeder powder
1 tsp cummin powder
1 tsp fennel powder
1/2 tsp turmeric
2 cloves garlic
1 tsp grated ginger
2in stick cinammon
500g tomatoes
2 tsp oil or ghee
10 curry leaves
1 cup coconut milk
lemon juice
Method:
Cut chicken into joints and put into saucepan with sufficient water to cover. Add salt, peppercorn, celery leaves and 1 onion and whole cloves. Bring to boil on high heat, then turn heat low, cover and simmer for 30 miutes. Add corriander, cummin, fennel turmeric, garlic , ginger, cinammon and tomatoes and simmer for a further hour or until the chicken is tender.
Strain stock into a large bowl. When chicken is cool enough to handle, cut the flesh into dice and return to the stock. Slice the remaining onion. Washout pan in which chicken cooked, dry it well and in it heat the oil or ghee. Fry the curry leaves and sliced onion until the onion is well browned. Then pour stock into pan and let it come to the boil. Reduce heat, stir in coconut milk and when soup returns to simmering point again remove from heat. Taste and add lemon juice to sharpen the flavour. If necessary add more salt. Serve hot either as a first course or to be sipped throughout the meal. This soup is also suitable for pouring over rice.
Hope you like this one
regards
JL
Thanks JL:
Wow! A whole chicken!
I'm going to have a go at that recipe. I'll get back to you and let you know how I got on.
Cheers
Phil
Hi Phil,
Yes it called for a whole chicken but did say that you can use only half and keep the rest for' sandwiches'. I used a small bird only about 500gm of chicken overall.
Enjoy:)
JL
Hi again JL
I bought what the French call a 'poule', which is an older boiling hen, rather than a 'poulet' (a young chicken; we live in the South of France)
It's shaping up and looking good, but I'm going to wait until tomorrow before adding the coconut milk, since we've run out. The function of the coconut milk is to act as a thickening agent, right? (In addition to its taste).
My wife, on smelling the hen simmering in the pot, was reminded of a chicken soup in her Belgian childhood, so she's doing another dish with two-thirds of the fowl.
By tomorrow lunchtime, we'll know what the final result is!
Phil
I forgot to buy coconut milk! (So I'll have a go another time, using coconut milk)
But we went ahead with it anyway. I added diced potatoes, in the vague hope of thickening it up, but I guess I needed to blend them with stock to achieve that.
I failed to get celery, alas, so I used carrots instead (for the stock).
Anyway, my wife and I loved it.
What a difference it makes to make proper chicken stock, using a chicken. I confess that, for my first attempt last week, I used a chicken stock cube. It's not at all as good as real chicken stock.
I have a query:
One often wants to reduce soup by boiling it, but I also recall a saying that, as far as soup is concerned. 'If you boil it, you'll spoil it'
I started off with so much stock because I had to add enough water to cover the bird during the stock-making process.
So, should one avoid boiling soup? Is it best to do the boiling during the stock preparation phase?
Anyway, I'm now a convert to proper chicken stock, especially since you can get a boiler chicken at a relatively low price.
Must go: off to cook an Indian dish for English dinner guests tonight, who live here in the South of France and miss Indian food. I'm going to get them on to this web site!
Phil
Hello Phil
I am just wondering why you have to cover the chicken with water completely? Once the water is boiling and the lid is on, the boling/simmering water will rise, along with the steam and cook the whole chicken anyway, won't it? It will leave you with a much more concentrated stock. I could be wrong of course.
Mamta
I suppose it depends on what the soup is and what its supposed to be like, but I can't see boiling making much difference... in fact I find sometimes when the soup boils up it helps to remove some of the less than wanted bits (fat and such) which floats to the top allowing you to skim it off...
?
Hi Phil
I am glad you enjoyed the dish:) I agree the coconut would have been for taste as well as a thickener but must admit I did did use the 98%fat free variety.... thinking of waist line and cholesterol level without trying to lose the taste completely.
As to the stock.... I did start off with a lot of water but decided to leave the lid off the pot so more water could evaporate. This way I was able to skim off the fat and it allowed it to boil down nicely.
Ciao
JL
Thanks to all of you for your responses, which are duly noted.
Tonight, with some of the stock, and the remainder of the boiling chicken, my wife had a go at a recipe her Belgian mother used to do (though it's not written down).
This involves melting butter in a bain marie, adding flour, then the chicken stock, and the curry powder.
I've always found French 'sauce curry' utterly bland, but this was really spciy hot because she accidentally put more curry powder in than she intended.
It very much reminded me of the Chinese takeaway yello curry sauce, which we have discussed here before, and for which I have a guilty liking.
So i'm going to re-create that, with this sauce, and chunks of chicken breast and onions, just like I used to have from my local Chinese takeaway in Edinburgh.
I must say, a well cooked boiler chicken actually tastes good.
Phil
Share the 'takeaway chicken curry' with all of us after you have made it Phil! Takeaway curry sauce is one of the most popular recipes on this site!!
Mamta
The only trouble with the recipe for "curry sauce" is it uses "a curry sauce mix" (if I'm not miss-reading what Phil has put).. which unless you can source that brand you can't recreate elsewhere - which is the problem we had originally with trying to make "curry sauce like you get in the Chinese Chippy" (I think was the title)...
Steve
Hi guys,
I have only a vague memory, now being 53, and the old brain slowing down a bit(though I do still manage to write and publish books, amazingly) of the curry sauce mix issue.
Anyway, what I meant, Steve, was just boring old Curry Powder (sometimes called 'Madras Curry Powder), sold in plastic sachets/bags in countless Asian shops in Britain. As you all know, it's a yellow mix of ground coriander, turmeric, cumin, chilli, fennel, fenugreek, etc. It's variably hot, and you can knock up the chilli heat by adding chilli powder.
So any version of that will do, I reckon.
I'll post a version of the 'bechamel' type recipe for that 'Chinese' sauce soon.
I admit to being a bit stuck-up about curry powder, curry sauce, and even the term 'curry', but I confess to having a craving for this particular thing.
If there's a version already on the site, is it under 'Chinese curry sauce'?
Phil
Hi there,
Here is a Madhur Jaffrey recipe for Mulligatawny from a magazine I get.
http://saveur.com/food/classic-recipes/mulligatawny-50461.html
Odette
Bonjour Odette (I'm assuming you're French)
Thanks for that.
It's VERY different from the chicken mulligatwany recipe in her 1982 book: it has lamb, not chicken, it has almonds and corainder, and there are no lentils.
Phil
Hi Phil and Mamta
I posted this to your site in 2007 (yes 3 years ago, where has the time gone eh?) as I was looking for a recipe and found this one which is very good by Madhur Jaffrey
I still make it and the family still enjoy it
Cheers
June
Oops, need to get the acknowledgement right..... make that a recipe from Charmaine Solomon rather Ms Jaffrey:) Sorry Charmaine
June
Hi June
I THOUGHT I'd learned about this on this website, but my memory was hazy on this. Thanks for reminding me of our exchanges back in 2007. I still have a printout of the recipe on that 'Saveur' site: many thanks.
Phil
I am an anglo-indian originally from Calcutta and we used to have chicken mulligatawny quite often. It was more a curry than a soup. I do make it here in Australia and this is my recipe.
1 whole chicken (cleaned and jointed)
1 heaped teaspoon tumeric powder
2 teaspoons crushed ginger
2 teaspoons crushed garlic
Green chillies (to your liking)
2 large onions finely sliced
2 teaspoons coriander powder
2 teaspoons cumin powder
1 doz curry leaves
Fresh coriander leaves
Salt
2 Fresh limes cut into quarters
1 large can coconut milk
4 cups of water
1 cup of oil
Heat oil and brown sliced onions. Add all the spices (mixed with a little water) and fry for approx 15 mins (add water if necessary to prevent from sticking to pan). Add chicken pieces and fry for a further few minutes till well coated. Add water, salt, curry leaves, bring to boiling point and then simmer for at least 1 hour or until chicken is thoroughly cooked. Lastly add coconut milk and let heat for 5 mins. I keep the chopped coriander and lime wedges in separate bowls so that individuals can add their own (my husband likes a lot of lime whereas I only like a little). Serve with boiled or steamed rice.
Thanks Allyson. It does look like a curry, doesn't it? Feel free to send it with pictures for inclusion on this site. We are always looking for good, riginal recipes that are your own.
Mamta
Allyson: interesting that this can be a curry, rather than a soup.
I did the soup last weekend: delicious!
A query re coconut milk: it naturally separates into 'fat' and liquid (I have a recipe for a Thai curry that requires both). I failed to shake the carton enough, and now have a whole load of the fairly solid coconut stuff left in the carton, with no milk. Can I just add water to that, to make coconut milk? I'd have thought so, but perhaps I'm wrong.
Phil
it is quite usual for the fat to separate from the watery liquid. Just scoop it out of the tin into the cooking pot. Do not add extra water.
Thanks. One of the many things I object to in supermarkets is the fact that one is so often obliged to buy more of a product than one wants, and this was the case with this over-large carton of coconut milk.
Phil,
It is only soup which has cream, milk or some other ingredient of that kind in it which is not supposed to be boiled because you can make it curdle. (Think of all those elegant pureed French soups finished with cream - that sort of thing.)
JL,
Charmaine Solomon was a good choice for this recipe because she has recipes for lots of Anglo-Indian or Anglo-Sri Lankan dishes in her books. The mulligatawny sounds really delicious. I think the kind in a can would have lost most of its flavour.
Heather
Thanks, Heather. I was always told, re soups: if you boil it, you'll spoil it.
My wife has just reminded me that her brocolli and blue cheese soup was inspired by a soup we ordered in a restaurant.
You can always be inspired by restaurant food, and try to replicate it at home. That's how we came to do our long peppers stuffed with fetta: inspired by our friend, the restaurateur Stavros Gorgios, on the Greek island of Symi
Phil
I love this recipe. Got it from a south indian chef on a cruise ship.
I've included my adjustments after experimentation.
MULLIGATAWNY
Oil 250 ml
Chopped garlic 150 gm.
Curry leaves - 25 gm.
Dice finely,
1 Tomato
Carrot
Onion
Celery
Potato
Toor Dhal - 1/2 kg.
Chilli Powder - 100 gms.
Coriander Powder - 100 gms.
Tumeric Powder - 100 gms.
Lemon Juice to Taste
Salt and Pepper
6 cups stock/water/vegetable soup
Shredded beef, chicken, or shrimp
Add a tbs. or two of boiled rice to each soup bowl
The texture of the soup was not as thick as Pea Soup but slightly thinner. The veggies were pureed with the lentils. The only tiny chunks in the soup were the beef and rice.
My comments:
1/2 kg. of toor too much. I used 1 cup but could have done with a little less.
I used 6/7 cloves of garlic and 1 grated tbs. of ginger.
I used 1 tbs. each of the spices. The tumeric was to much. Next time I'd use 3/4 to 1 tsp.
Mulligatawny is a version of Pepper Water. Next time, I'll add 5/6 pepper corns for that extra zap.
Good idea to soak the Toor Dhal a couple of hours to soften, expedites cooking. I was very pleased at the way it turned out.