Mulligatawny is what you get when Britain sashays east to lord it over India, and the locals are expected to make soup for them. There is scant tradition of soup in India, so, in the days of the Raj (post-1858 and pre-1947), what could you do but rustle up a vegetable soup and add the spice cupboard to it. At least it would make it palatable. Basically, it’s soup curry. Today, would you believe, it is the national soup of India, and it is also widely known in Britain.

As a kid I thought it was Irish. Just look at the name and you’ll see what I mean. But it comes from the Tamil miḷagāy (chilli) and tannu (water). In hotels in South Africa in the Fifties and Sixties you’d find it on nearly every menu. Later on, when it had receded in popularity, it would be brought to mind whenever you watched Dinner F0r One, the Freddie Frinton comedy sketch show in which he serves it to Miss Sophie and a table of imaginary guests, Miss Sophie’s old (and presumably long dead) friends Sir Toby, Mr Winterbottom, Admiral von Schneider, and Mr Pomeroy. Frinton, a master farceur from England, first performed it in the Fifties and then, astutely, bought the rights to it. In 1963 he recorded a short film of it in Germany, which grew in popularity throughout northern Europe from Germany and Switzerland to Belgium and the Scandinavian countries, even Estonia, in many of which the sketch is watched every New Year. Yet ask a Briton who Freddie Frinton is, or if they have seen Dinner For One, and you’re likely to draw a blank. It’s barely known there. Yet it, and he, ought to be British national treasures.

It is known to South Africans too after the old SABC started flighting it every New year’s Eve from the mid-Eighties onwards. I remember seeing it for the first time at a preview one morning at the SABC studios in Sea Point, Cape Town, and Marianne Thamm and I, then both television reporters – we were the only people there – were crying, even rolling on the floor, with laughter. I have never tired of it ever since. We pressed rewind and watched it three times. If you don’t know it, here’s a brief education… see you in 15 minutes…

So, James, you may now serve the soup, and mind that tiger skin rug…

Ingredients

1.5 l chicken stock

2 Tbsp butter

1 Tbsp sunflower or canola oil

2 chicken breast fillets, in small pieces, cooked (fry in a little butter, seasoning it with salt and pepper)

2 red onions, sliced

3 carrots, diced

2 leeks, sliced

2 or 3 sticks celery, sliced

150 g red lentils, soaked in water for 2 hours

3 garlic cloves, minced

1 Tbsp minced ginger

2 tsp curry powder

1 tsp cumin

1/2 tsp ground fennel

1/2 tsp ground coriander

Juice of 1 lemon

1 or 2 chillies, deseeded and chopped

3 Tbsp quince or mango chutney or good ol’ Mrs Balls’

1 400 g can coconut milk

1 Tbsp tamarind pulp

1 apple, peeled and cored

Salt to taste

Pepper to taste

Fresh coriander

Plain yoghurt

Method

Melt butter and add the oil, and sauté the onions till soft. Add the carrots, celery, leeks and simmer, stirring, until softened. Add the garlic and ginger, both minced, and cook gently for a few minutes.

Now add the chopped chillies, the curry powder, spices, the grated apple and the lentils with their water, add the chicken stock, bring to a boil and reduce to a low heat to simmer for 15 minutes.

Remove from the heat and blend until smooth.

Add salt, stir, taste, and adjust salt if necessary. Add the cooked chicken bits, lemon juice and chutney, then the coconut cream, apple and tamarind. Taste it. You’re looking for a good savoury and sweet balance, the lemon and tamarind both lending bite and a hint of sourness which the soup needs. Garnish with fresh coriander. Serve with a swirl of plain yoghurt. 

Serve the soup with a little drop of sherry, as Miss Sophie would require James to do, and don’t forget to toast Sir Toby et al. DM/TGIFood

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