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Plain Chicken Soup

A clear chicken soup with rice, onion, celery, parsley, and optional thickening with corn starch or roux.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Mary Ronald · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Plain Chicken Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Place the fowl, cut into pieces, in a saucepan with four quarts of cold water.

  2. When it comes to the boiling point, draw it aside and let it simmer for three hours.

  3. Add one thick slice of onion, two sticks of celery, one sprig of parsley, and one cupful of rice, and simmer for another hour.

  4. Strain and let the soup stand until the grease can be taken off the top.

Finish the soup

  1. Remove the meat, bones, and vegetables from the strainer, and press the rice through the sieve.

  2. Stir this into the soup.

  3. Take two tablespoonfuls of the cold stock and stir into it one tablespoonful of corn starch.

  4. Stir this into the soup, and let cook for ten minutes to remove raw taste and make it clear.

  5. Season with salt and pepper, and heat again before serving.

  6. A little cream may also be added.

  7. Pieces of the breast cut into dice may also be added.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

263Calories
6 gProtein
1 gFat
58 gCarbs

Counts 6 of 7 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 6 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Rice1 cup cooked (158g) white206
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Celery1 stalk (40g)6
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Parsley1 tbsp chopped fresh (3.8g)1
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
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 Ronald. 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. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  4. Rice + corntop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Fowl
Gives the soup its main flavor and body as it simmers for hours.
Rice
Pressed through the sieve, it thickens the soup and adds body.
Corn starch
Thickens the stock and helps the soup become clear after cooking.

The step that matters

Adding the corn starch mixture. Corn starch must be mixed into cold stock first so it does not clump, then cooked for about ten minutes so it thickens fully and the raw starch taste cooks off.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, celery, parsley, corn, 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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