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
Cut up the chicken and place it in a pot with the cold water.
Add the coarse sea salt and bring to a boil.
Reduce heat and simmer slowly for 2 hours.
Add the rice 30 minutes before removing from heat.
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.
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Chicken + ricetop 5% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,769 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Chicken
- Releases flavor and gelatin into the broth as it simmers slowly.
- Rice
- Absorbs liquid and softens, thickening the soup slightly and adding body.
The step that matters
Simmer slowly rather than boiling. Keeping the liquid at a gentle simmer after the initial boil lets the chicken become tender and the broth clear. A hard, rolling boil toughens the meat and clouds the broth.
“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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