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Chicken Soup

A clear soup made with chicken jelly, onion, turnip, rice, and cream, garnished with hard‑boiled eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Chicken Soup

Why it works: Chicken and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,769 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓

Chicken Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Heat the chicken jelly in a pot.

  2. Add the chopped onion and turnip.

  3. Stir in the rice and add water as needed while boiling.

  4. Once the rice and vegetables are tender, strain the soup through a colander.

  5. Season with salt and pepper, then stir in the cream (or milk) and butter mixed with flour.

Serve

  1. Serve the soup in a tureen and garnish with chopped hard-boiled eggs.

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. Chicken + ricetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,769 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  2. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + flourtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken jelly
Provides the rich, gelatinous body and meaty flavour that forms the base of the soup.
Rice
Thickens the soup as its starch softens during boiling.
Cream (or milk)
Adds richness and a smooth, mellow texture to the finished soup.
Flour
Thickens the cream and butter mixture so it blends smoothly into the soup.
Butter
Adds fat for richer flavour and a silkier mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Stirring in the cream or milk with the butter and flour. Dairy can curdle or turn grainy when it boils hard or meets acid or unevenly mixed flour. Keep the soup at a gentle heat, and blend the flour with the butter first so it thickens smoothly.

Swap the turnip

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, onion, rice, pepper, cream, butter, flour):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Turnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, onion, rice, pepper, cream, butter, flour. 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.

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