Mullagatawny Soup

History

Black pepper and tamarind-based broths from the Coromandel Coast provided the foundational heat and acidity for what would become this soup. In the Tamil region, these spicy, thin stews were designed to stimulate the appetite and combat the humidity of the coast, utilizing local ingredients like coconut and mango to balance the pungent heat of the pepper.

This indigenous tradition merged with the British preference for thick, meat-based potages during the 18th century. British officers and administrators in the East India Company adapted the local 'pepper water' by adding European thickening agents—such as roux or cream—and substituting local fish or vegetables with rabbit, fowl, or beef. The name itself is an anglicization of the Tamil 'miḷagu' (pepper) and 'taṇṇīr' (water), which English speakers rendered phonetically as 'mullagatawny'.

By the mid-19th century, the dish had traveled back to the metropole, becoming a marker of colonial sophistication in Victorian dining rooms. Eliza Acton's 1845 work, Modern Cookery for Private Families, documents this transition, offering a version that sets currie-powder and pickled mango — exotic by Victorian lights — against the familiar structure of an English meat stew, served alongside boiled rice to mirror the Indian custom.

Ingredients

• 1 rabbit
• 4 large onions
• good butter
• 1 quart good boiling stock
• 2.5 pints stock
• 2 tablespoonsful currie-powder
• 2 tablespoonsful browned flour
• 1 small lemon
• pickled mango
• 3 ounces grated cocoa-nut
• flesh of part of calf's head
• sweetbread
• 1 large cupful thick cream
• boiled rice

Instructions

1. Slice and fry gently in good butter three or four large onions until they are of a fine even amber colour.
2. Lift the onions out with a slice and put them into a deep stewpot or large thick saucepan.
3. Throw a little more butter into the pan and lightly brown in it a young rabbit (or the prime joints of two), or a fowl cut down small and floured.
4. When the meat is sufficiently browned, lay it upon the onions.
5. Pour gradually to them a quart of good boiling stock and stew gently for three quarters of an hour to an hour.
6. Take out the meat and pass the stock and onions through a fine sieve or strainer.
7. Add two and a half pints more of stock and pour the whole into a clean pan.
8. When it boils, stir to it two tablespoonsful of currie-powder mixed with nearly as much browned flour and a little cold water or broth.
9. Put in the meat and simmer for twenty minutes or longer should it not be perfectly tender.
10. Add the juice of a small lemon just before it is dished.
11. Serve it very hot and send boiled rice to table with it.