This recipe of my friend's may be taken as a very good guide for a mulligatunny made with pure meat stock extracted from veal, mutton, beef, or fowl, and ready-made paste. Yolks of eggs may supply the place of cream, and cocoanut milk may be substituted for the lait d'amandes. The addition of either almond or cocoanut milk is, however, a sine qua non, if the object be to obtain a soft, creamy, well-flavoured, thick mulligatunny. The straining must also be carried out carefully, and the thickening as well.

Rice is served with mulligatunny, but it is, I think, a mistake to do so. We do not call for rice with hare soup, game soup, or mock-turtle; why, then, should we ruin our appetites by taking rice with so satisfying a potage as mulligatunny? The custom has been handed down to us by our forefathers, who, of course, ate rice with their mulltgatunny, as did the natives from whom they learnt the dish.

The object in a clear mullgatunny is to present a bright, sparkling consomme of the colour of clear turtle, with a tided flavour of mulligatunny, and slightly peppery. Now, if you try to communicate the flavour with ready-made curry-powder or paste, in which there is a certain quantity of turmeric, you will experience considerable difficulty in getting your soup bright and clear. Pounded coriander seed, too is oily, and would probably cause trouble. So the casuest method is to put a muslin bag, containing the flavouring ingredients, into the soup kettle with the vegetables, and to remove it as soon as the consomme is satisfactorily impregnated with the wished-for aroma. The pepperiness is best imparted with a few drops of tabasco as a finishing touch, or of chilli-vinegar if tabasco be unobtainable.

The following proportions will, I think, be found satisfactory as far as the flavouring is concerned :- Two ounces of coriander seed, one ounce of cummin seed, one ounce of fenugreek or maythee, half an ounce of mustard seed, two cloves of garlic, a dozen black peppercorns, and four or five leaves of kurreaphool, or kodia neem (karay-pauk). All put into a muslin bag, without pounding or bruising, boiled with the soup, and removed as soon as the flavour is satisfactory. These quantities are estimated for above three pints of clear consomme; but as tastes vary in the matter of condiments, they are obviously susceptible of alteration at discretion.

I would abstain from the use of all ordinary spices for fear of disturbing the flavour derived from the curry-stuff. The soup itself may be ordinary consomme, consomme de volatile or blond de veau. Clear ox-tail thus flavoured is well-known at the Army and Navy Club in London under the name of queue de boeuf a l'lndienne.

Fish consomme, i.e., a stock made from fish and vegetables, makes a capital basis for a thick mulligatunny; and a bisque or puree of shell-fish, flavoured with curry-paste, is a right royal potage.

Vegetarians can fall back upon a stock composed of vegetables, consomme de legumes. This, artfully flavoured with a good mulligatunny paste, thickened with flour and butter, and enriched with lait d'amandes, cocoanut milk, cream, or raw yolks of eggs, will be found to make a most excellent soupe maigre.

The stock should be composed as follows :- "Weigh, when trimmed and cut up, one pound, each, of carrots and onions. Throw them into a stew-pan, with half a pound of butter (tinned butter will do well), a bunch of parsley, and a couple of ounces of celery. Fry until the vegetables begin to take colour, then moisten with two quarts of hot water. Boil and skim, then put into the pan half an ounce of salt, a quarter ounce of black peppercorns, and a pint measure of shelled green peas. Simmer for three hours, skim off any oil that may rise from the butter, and strain the broth into a basin through a tamis.

Be careful in using turnips. Unless they are very young they are apt to be overstrongly flavoured in this country. Leeks are invaluable; if available I would put half a pound of them in with the carrots; a few sprigs of thyme or marjoram are also useful. A pint of French beans may be used instead of, or in addition to, the peas. This consomme is, with a dash of white wine, quite fit to serve alone. Maccaroni or vermicelli may be added to it as a garnish, and grated Parmesan may accompany it.

For ordinary mulligatunny maigre, however, plain eau de cuisson may be employed. This most useful liquid is too often thrown away by ignorant native cooks, or annexed by the wary ones for their own food. It is the water in which certain vegetables have been boiled. As a matter of economy, house-keepers should make a note of this. Suppose you want to make a salade cuite, i.e., a salad of cooked vegetables, the water in which the carrots, onions, leeks, peas, flageolets, French beans, and young turnips are boiled will provide you with an excellent stock for ordinary white sauce, or mulligatunny.

The ordinary chicken or mutton mulligatunny, made without assistance in the way of stock, may, with some little pains, be sent up in better style than our cooks, as a rule, are satisfied with. We do not want a thin yellow liquid with queer-looking leaves and bits of fried onion floating in it. We ask for a smooth, creamy potage, free from any lump or floating substance, and garnished with a few choice pieces of the chicken or mutton of which it was composed.

Cut up a will-nurtured chicken or young fowl as if for fricassee, soak the pieces in cold water for a quarter of an hour, then slice up a couple of good-sized onions, and put them, with two table-spoonfuls of butter, into a stew-pan on a good fire. Fry the chicken and onions together till slightly browned, then pick out the chicken, and stir into the butter a couple of table-spoonfuls of mulligatunny paste or curry-powder (Barrie's "Madras," if possible). Cook the paste or powder with the butter and onions for five minutes, and then stir in a couple of pints of warm water. Add the chicken; and if the pieces are not quite covered, put in water enough to do so. Let the contents come to the boil, then ease off the fire, and simmer for half an hour very gently. While this is going on, pound a couple of ounces of almonds in a mortal, with a coffeecupful of milk, give it a pinch of sugar, and let the mixture stand till wanted. Now, having ascertained that the chicken is quite tender, stir in a dessert-spoonful of good chutney, a tea-spoonful of red currant jelly, and a tea-spoonful of lime-juice, and, after five minutes' simmering, strain off the whole of the liquid into a bowl. Pick out the nicest pieces of chicken for garnish, and put them aside. Now, skim the surface of the liquid, and, when quite clear of grease, proceed to thicken it, using a table-spoonful of butter and one of flour, and stirring in the soup slowly. All having been poured in, strain into the saucepan the almond milk, using a piece of muslin in order to catch up the bits of nut. Let the mulligatunny come to the boil, and serve.

The chief points to observe are :- First, the use of a really good paste or powder; next the simmering and addition of a pleasant sub-acid; then the straining, skimming, and thickening; and lastly, the introduction of the almond milk. Instead of almond milk, cocoanut milk (the infusion of the nut, I mean) may be used, and a table-spoonful of cream, or a couple of raw yolks of eggs, may be stirred into the tureen with the soup, by degrees, just before serving. The choice pieces of chicken should also be served in the mulligatunny.

For mutton mulligatunny follow this recipe, substitut-ing a neck or breast of mutton for the chicken.

It will be seen from these observations that, while there is no difficulty whatever in making mulligatunny of a superior, as well as of an ordinary kind, it is a soup that demands no little care and attention. Whether it is worth the trouble or not is a question that can only be decided by practical experiment. I have no hesitation in recommending the trial.