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Soup of Any Kind of Old Fowl

A soup made from the meat of old fowl, cooked with bacon, onions, herbs, and thickened with butter, flour, eggs, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Mary Randolph · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Soup of Any Kind of Old Fowl

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fowl

  1. Put the fowls in a coop and feed them moderately for a fortnight.

  2. Kill one and cleanse it.

  3. Cut off the legs and wings, and separate the breast from the ribs, which, together with the whole back, must be thrown away, being too gross and strong for use.

  4. Take the skin and fat from the parts cut off which are also gross.

  5. Wash the pieces nicely.

Make the soup

  1. Put them on the fire with a pound of bacon, a large onion chopped small, some pepper and salt, a few blades of mace, a handful of parsley cut up very fine, and two quarts of water (if it be a common fowl or duck; a turkey will require more water).

  2. Boil gently for three hours.

  3. Tie up a small bunch of thyme and let it boil in it for half an hour, then take it out.

Thicken and finish

  1. Thicken the soup with a large spoonful of butter rubbed into two of flour, the yolks of two eggs, and half a pint of milk.

  2. Be careful not to let it curdle in the soup.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

832Calories
31 gProtein
29 gFat
109 gCarbs

Counts 7 of 8 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 7 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Bacon1 slice cooked (8g)43
Thyme1 tsp dried (1.4g)4
Parsley1 tbsp chopped fresh (3.8g)1
Waternot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Mary Randolph. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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 + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Thyme + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Fowl (in the method)
Provides the meat and body that flavour the broth during the long simmer.
Bacon
Adds smoky, salty fat that enriches the broth's flavour.
Butter and flour
Form a roux-style paste that thickens the soup as it is stirred in.
Eggs
Yolks enrich and further thicken the soup, adding richness and body.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softness to the thickened soup.

The step that matters

Adding the egg and milk thickening without curdling. Egg yolks can scramble or curdle when they meet hot liquid too quickly. Keeping the soup below a simmer while stirring in the yolk and milk mixture helps it stay smooth and thick.

Swap the thyme

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsley, butter, flour, milk, egg):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits about as well
  4. Thymethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, butter, flour, milk, 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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