Mulligatawny Soup

Hello,

After graduating from art school, I would spend part of my days dropping off my illustration portfolios for art directors at magazines and publishing houses in mid-town Manhattan, all before the days when artists had websites. At least three nights each week I would wait on tables at The Front Porch in Greenwich Village. My yellow Schwinn bicycle was often my mode of transportation for all destinations.  Most of the people that I worked with at the restaurant were artists from various disciplines and two of my co-workers are still close friends of mine. The restaurant was small, with only thirteen tables, and the waiter that was on for the evening was also the “shift manager”, meaning that we had little supervision. At the end of the night, I would close the front gate and secure it with a bicycle lock before depositing the cash in a drop at the bank.

Elizabeth Zimmerman and Cleves Rich opened The Front Porch in May of 1971, without either of them having any restaurant experience.  Elizabeth enjoyed cooking and Cleves enjoyed baking. The Greenwich Village location was their first restaurant and its corner spot with its green exterior, wrap-around windows, and hanging plants resembled a front porch. Their focus was on freshly made homemade soups and desserts and they were an immediate success. They opened additional locations, but according to this New York Times article, the cost of building a commissary to supply all the sites, compounded with the rising cost of food, and an unsuccessful operation on the Upper East Side was forcing them out of business in 1974. They are quoted lamenting the need to charge customers a whopping $1.25 for a bowl of soup. The article ends with their eminent demise, but that is not what happened.

The Front Porch was ultimately purchased by two businessmen who expanded the menu and added a Gramercy Park location that also housed a commissary. I met Cleves Rich a couple of times at the restaurant so she may have stayed as a consultant.  By the time that I worked there, soup and desserts were still a mainstay of the menu. Three soups were featured each day; one meat, one vegetarian, one chilled, and three different desserts.  Persian lentil, gazpacho, chilled plum soup, Ukrainian borscht, and mulligatawny are some offerings that come to mind. A crusty Italian bread was served with meat soups, pumpernickel with vegetarian soups, and fruit bread ( a lemon or carrot quick bread) with sweet, cold soups. For dessert, there was chocolate chess pie, English toffee pudding, German chocolate cake, and carrot cake. Fresh whipped cream to top your dessert was always available.

Eventually, the restaurants began to look a bit faded and were sold off. The Greenwich Village location is now home to the French bistro Tartine and I have heard that the food is very good. The Front Porch had on display a menu from a soda fountain that had been in that location at one time. Cities are constantly reinventing themselves.

The only thing that I remember about the Front Porch mulligatawny soup was its sunny yellow color. This recipe is the result of some research and experimentation. There seem to be many variations of the soup and I’m pretty sure that the Front Porch version did not include coconut milk. The origin of the soup dates back to the time between 1858 and 1947 when the Indian subcontinent was under British rule. Mulligatawny is a Tamil word. “Millagu” refers to pepper and “thanni” is water. South Indian cooks made this dish in the homes and clubs of officials from the East India Company. The British took the soup recipe home with them and it apparently became a popular pub food.

Mulligatawny Soup

Ingredients

2 split chicken breasts

Vegetable oil, approximately 4T.

1 yellow onion, minced

8 garlic cloves, smashed and minced

2 T. fresh ginger, minced

1 t. turmeric

1 t. curry

1/2 t. cumin

1/4 t. red pepper flakes, crushed

I c. carrots, diced

1 c. red lentils

1 large Granny Smith apple, chopped

2 T. tomato paste

3 T. flour

6 cups of chicken broth ( saved from cooking the chicken)

1 14 oz. can coconut milk, unsweetened and full-fat

Lime

Directions

Cover the chicken breasts with water and a dash of salt in a medium pot. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and cook until the meat is no longer pink near the bone. Allow the breasts to cool enough to handle and remove the meat from the bone. While waiting for the breasts to cool, strain the cooking liquid (stock) and refrigerate. After several hours or overnight the fat will rise to the top and can be skimmed from the stock. If you are not left with enough stock, make up the difference with store-bought.

Warm a splash of the oil (add more as needed) in a large soup pot over medium heat. Add the onions and saute until they are translucent and browning slightly. Add garlic and ginger to the pot and saute for two minutes. Add turmeric, curry, cumin, and red pepper flakes for a minute. Add the carrots and apple for an additional two minutes. Stir in tomato paste and then the flour until everything has become coated. Add the chicken, that has been shredded, the lentils, and the chicken stock stirring in any brown bits that are in the bottom of the pan. Add a dash of salt. Simmer for 25-30 minutes until the lentils are cooked. Stir in the coconut milk. Serve with a squeeze of lime.

Thanks for reading!

Vicki