Skip to main content
Main

Chicken Soup

Chicken Soup made with boiled milk, eggs, bread crumbs, butter, pepper, salt, mace.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Chicken Soup

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Chicken Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Remove the fat from the cold stock.

  2. Heat the stock to boiling.

  3. Add the chicken, pepper, salt, and mace.

  4. Simmer for 1 hour.

Make the custard

  1. Beat the eggs.

  2. Pour the boiling milk over the eggs, stirring over the heat for 10 minutes.

  3. Add the butter and let it melt.

  4. Stir in the bread crumbs.

  5. Remove from heat.

Finish and serve

  1. Pour the soup through a colander and stir well.

  2. Serve.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Chicken + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,389 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the meaty body and savory flavor of the soup.
Eggs
Set when heated, thickening the milk into a smooth, custard-like body.
Milk
Adds creaminess and, with the eggs, a silky texture.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and help thicken the soup.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Pouring the boiling milk over the eggs. Eggs are proteins that set when heated. Pouring the milk in while stirring gently warms the eggs evenly. If they get too hot or are not stirred enough, they can curdle and leave the soup grainy.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, bread, egg, milk, butter, pepper):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, bread, egg, milk, butter, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

More chicken soup recipes

White 9Almond 8Creamy 7Friar's 6Plain 5with Dumplings 3 See all 163 →

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesChicken BrothChicken Broth257 recipesCreamed ChickenCreamed Chicken89 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipes