Why it works: Chicken and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,958 recipes. Both carry piperonal, which smells bitter, coconut. The science ↓
Cream Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Cook the chicken
Boil the chicken until tender; if it is too fatty, skim off the fat.
Season with coarse sea salt and black pepper to taste.
Prepare a thickening for the soup as you would for gravy.
Finish the soup
Whip the egg whites until stiff and set aside.
Whip the sweet cream until thick and fold it into the soup.
Gently stir in the whipped egg whites.
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.
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Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,958 recipes
Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).
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Pepper + creamtop 23% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together21,449 recipes
Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
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Chicken + creamtop 23% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together6,241 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
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Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together42,166 recipes
Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
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Chicken + eggtop 30% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,991 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
Pepper and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 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
- Chicken
- Provides the main body and flavor of the soup as it cooks tender.
- Egg whites
- Whipped to stiff foam, they add lightness and airy texture to the soup.
- Sweet cream
- Whipped and folded in, it adds richness, fat and a silky texture.
- Thickening
- Starch-based thickener that gives the soup body, as in a gravy.
The step that matters
Gently stir in the whipped egg whites. Whipped egg whites hold air in a fragile foam. Stirring too vigorously or letting the soup get too hot deflates them, losing the light texture.
“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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