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Chicken Soup

A chicken soup made with chicken, water, onions, celery, cream, butter, cornstarch, salt, pepper, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Chicken Soup

Why it works: Onion and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,518 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Chicken Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Combine the chicken and cold water in a large pot. Bring to a boil.

  2. Add 1 tablespoon of salt, the onions, and the celery. Simmer until the chicken is cooked through.

  3. Remove the chicken, shred the meat, and return it to the pot.

Finish the soup

  1. In a separate bowl, mix the cream, butter, cornstarch, and the remaining salt and pepper.

  2. Stir the cream mixture into the soup and cook until thickened.

  3. Beat the eggs and stir them into the soup just before serving.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  4. Chicken + celerytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the meat and flavour for the soup, shredded and returned to the pot.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky body to the soup.
Cornstarch
Thickens the cream mixture as the soup cooks, giving it body.
Eggs
Stirred in at the end, they add richness and slight thickening to the soup.

The step that matters

Stirring the eggs in just before serving. Eggs added to very hot soup can scramble into small curds. Adding them off the heat, just before serving, keeps the texture smooth.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, onion, celery, cream, butter, egg):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, onion, celery, cream, butter, 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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