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Fish Mulligatawney, Benares
Have the head of a large fresh fish, or two small ones if preferred, then procure two pounds fresh codfish. Place it in a saucepan with three quarts cold water. Season with one tablespoon salt, half teaspoon white pepper and a saltspoon grated nutmeg. Add four slices carrot, one small sliced apple, one sliced leek, four slices turnip, half sliced green pepper (all vegetables cut in dice pieces), two beans crushed garlic, one whole parsley root, two cloves, one small sliced onion, half small branch celery, one chopped ripe tomato, half sprig bay leaf and the same of hyme. Let them slowly boil for one hour. Should codfish be used remove it after having cooked for twenty-five minutes so it can be used for dinner fish, but allow the broth to boil for one hour. Prepare the following: Melt one and a half tablespoons butter in a saucepan, stir in two level tablespoons flour, mix well for three minutes; add one tablespoon curry powder, mix well again with a whisk. Strain the fish broth and gradually add it to this roux, gently mixing with a whisk meanwhile. Add a piece of lemon rind, one heaping tablespoon raw rice, and let slowly cook for thirty minutes.
Cut into very small pieces a small piece of codfish, about a tablespoon; add it to the soup, pour in one teaspoon Worcestershire sauce and mix well. (Small canned quenelles may be employed in default of codfish.) Pour into a hot soup tureen and serve.
A fish-stock mulligatawny in the French manner: a long-simmered court bouillon, then a curry roux thickened with rice. The recipe is sound, and most of what needs translating is vocabulary.
- Saltspoon and other small measuresA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon, so the nutmeg is a small pinch. "Two beans crushed garlic" means two cloves; the odd word is probably a literal turn on the French gousse (pod), a usage that recurs in professional cookbooks of the period.
- Typos in the originalThe original's wording -- "Hyme" is thyme; "half sprig bay leaf" is best read as half a leaf rather than half a branch. The seasoning as written is restrained for three quarts of liquid.
- The codfish is fresh, not saltSalt cod would wreck the balance of the broth, which already carries a full tablespoon of salt. Buy fresh cod, or any firm white fish; the head is there for gelatine and body and is worth asking a fishmonger for.
- Take the fish out earlyThe instruction to lift the cod at twenty-five minutes is the hinge of the recipe. Two pounds of cod boiled a full hour turns to cotton wool; pull it while it still flakes, reserve it, and let the head and vegetables carry the remaining thirty-five minutes.
- Cook the curry powderThe three minutes on the flour and the whisking-in of the curry powder before any liquid goes near it are what keep the soup from tasting raw and dusty. Commercial blends vary widely in heat; start with a tablespoon and judge.
- Parsley rootA pale, carrot-shaped root sold in Central and Eastern European groceries as petrushka or Hamburg parsley. A parsnip the size of a finger plus a few parsley stalks stands in acceptably.
- The riceA heaping tablespoon of raw rice in thirty minutes' simmering breaks down and thickens the soup rather than staying as grains. Long-grain works; do not substitute a fast-cooking rice.
- QuenellesThe canned quenelles offered as a substitute were small poached fish or veal dumplings; they were sold tinned in this period and are now hard to find outside France. The reserved cod is the better option in any case.
- YieldThree quarts will reduce over the hour, and again during the thirty minutes with the rice, so expect appreciably less in the tureen; enough for a first course for a large table. Strain the broth through a fine sieve or cloth — the head leaves fine bones.
Mulligatawny is an Anglo-Indian invention with a Tamil name: milagu tannir, pepper water, the thin peppery rasam of South Indian households, remade by British cooks in India into a thick curried soup with meat and rice. By the time this book was compiled the dish had been on English and American tables for well over a century, and its "Indian" identity was chiefly a matter of curry powder. The Benares attribution here is decorative rather than documentary he roux moistened with strained court bouillon, and the tomato, leek, celery and parsley root belong to a European stockpot, not a Ganges kitchen. What the recipe itself suggests is a double use: a fish head and two pounds of cod yield both a soup and, the text notes, cod that may be kept for the evening's dinner fish, and nothing is wasted.