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Velvet Cream Chicken Soup

A creamy chicken soup made with boiled chicken, vegetables, milk, cornstarch, butter, and optional beaten egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Velvet Cream Chicken Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Boil the chicken in 3 quarts of water with the onion, carrot, and celery for 2½ hours.

  2. Remove the fat and bones.

  3. Mince the meat.

  4. Rub the mixture through a colander.

Finish and serve

  1. Thicken the hot milk with cornstarch and butter.

  2. Mix the thickened milk with the soup.

  3. Add the beaten egg if desired.

  4. Stir on the fire for 1 minute.

  5. 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.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

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

  4. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  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
Provides the main body and rich flavor of the soup.
Cornstarch
Thickens the milk so the soup becomes smooth and velvety.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the thickened milk.
Milk
Forms the creamy base that gives the soup its smooth texture.
Egg
Adds richness and gently thickens the soup when heated.

The step that matters

Stir on the fire for 1 minute. Cornstarch must be heated to boiling to fully thicken, but stirring constantly prevents scorching and lumps. Once the starch has thickened, the soup should not be left to boil hard, since the egg can curdle if overheated.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Parsleyfits about as well
  2. Garlicfits about as well
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, onion, carrot, milk, butter, egg. 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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