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Chicken Soup

A clear soup made from boiled chickens, pearl barley, cream, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Chicken Soup

Why it works: Chicken and barley work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 265 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Chicken Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Boil the chickens in 2 quarts of water until the meat falls from the bones.

  2. Remove the meat from the soup.

  3. Boil the bones for 1 more hour.

  4. Strain the soup through a clean cloth.

Finish the soup

  1. Add the pearl barley.

  2. Boil the barley until soft.

  3. Strain the soup again.

  4. Add the cream and flour.

  5. Scald the mixture without boiling.

  6. Serve.

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 + barleytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together265 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  2. Barley + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together582 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cream + flourtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  4. Chicken + creamtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Barley + creamtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together301 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Chickens
Provide the meat and bones that build the flavor of the broth.
Pearl barley
Adds body and a soft, chewy texture as it cooks in the broth.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup slightly, helping the cream blend smoothly into it.

The step that matters

Scald the mixture without boiling. Once cream is added, a rolling boil can cause it to curdle or separate, so heat it just until steaming and keep it from boiling.

“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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