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Chicken Soup

A broth made from chicken, water, onions, parsley, rice, salt, and white pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 broth

  1. Clean the chicken and place it in a large pot with the cold water.

  2. Bring slowly to a boil and simmer for three hours.

  3. Skim off all the grease, then add the onions and parsley.

  4. Boil for 10 minutes, then draw off and strain the broth.

Add rice and season

  1. Return the broth to the pot, bring to a boil, and add the rice.

  2. Cook for 25 minutes, then add salt and white pepper.

Can and process

  1. Shut off the heat, place in cans, cap, tip, and process.

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

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

  3. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Parsley + ricetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,762 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Releases flavor and body into the broth as it simmers slowly in water.
Onions
Add sweetness and savory depth as they soften and flavor the broth.
Parsley
Adds a fresh, herbal aroma to the finished soup.
Rice
Its starch thickens the broth slightly and adds body to each spoonful.
White pepper
Adds a mild, sharp warmth and aroma without dark specks.

The step that matters

Sealing and processing the cans. Hot soup must be sealed and processed correctly, because improper canning lets bacteria survive and can make the soup unsafe to store.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

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