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Chicken Soup

A hearty soup made with chicken, round steak, rice, and seasonings.

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

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Chicken Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Cut the chicken into pieces and break the bones.

  2. Place the chicken and round steak in a soup pot and cover with water.

  3. Cook until the chicken meat falls apart.

  4. Strain the soup.

Finish and serve

  1. Add rice to each quart of soup and simmer for 45 minutes.

  2. Add the diced cooked chicken breast, minced parsley, salt, and pepper.

  3. Serve hot.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  3. Rice + parsleytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,762 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

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

What each ingredient does

Whole chicken
Gives the broth its main body and flavour as it cooks down in water.
Round steak
Adds meaty flavour to the broth during the long simmer.
Rice
Thickens the soup slightly as its starch releases during simmering.
Cooked chicken breast
Adds tender, ready-cooked chicken pieces to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Simmering the rice for 45 minutes. Rice keeps absorbing liquid and releasing starch while it simmers, so it can swell and make the soup thick or mushy if left too long.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Celeryfits about as well
  3. Corianderfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, rice, 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.

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