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Soup

Chicken and Egg Soup

A clear soup made with chicken, eggs, bread, bay leaves, cabbage leaf, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and cabbage are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,081 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Chicken and Egg Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Place the chicken in a pot and cover with cold water.

  2. Bring the pot to a boil, skimming off any foam.

  3. Season with salt and pepper.

  4. Add the bay leaves and cabbage leaf half an hour before serving.

  5. Strain the soup.

Finish and serve

  1. Return the strained soup to the pot.

  2. Stir in the beaten eggs and grated bread.

  3. Cook for about one minute 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.

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. Pepper + cabbagetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Chicken + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,258 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity).

  4. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

  5. Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set into soft ribbons and thicken the broth as they cook.
Dry bread
Thickens the broth and gives the soup a light, soft body.
Whole chicken
Releases flavour and gelatin into the water as it simmers, giving the broth body.

The step that matters

Stir in the beaten eggs and grated bread. Egg proteins set when hot, so the soup must be just simmering, not vigorously boiling, or the eggs turn into rough lumps instead of fine ribbons.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, pepper, egg, bread):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pepper, egg, bread. 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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