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Chicken Soup

A clear soup made from a young chicken simmered in water with salt, butter, flour, and celery.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Chicken Soup

Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Chicken Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Dress and joint the chicken.

  2. Place the chicken in a pot with 3 quarts of cold water.

Cook the soup

  1. Add coarse sea salt to taste and cook until the chicken is very tender and the bones fall out.

  2. Remove the chicken and reserve it for chicken croquettes.

  3. Stir in the butter and flour, cooking until well combined.

  4. Just before serving, add the chopped celery.

  5. Strain the soup.

  6. Serve very hot.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Flour + celerytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,905 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

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

  5. Butter + celerytop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,049 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the soup a smoother, rounder mouthfeel.
All-purpose flour
Cooked with the butter, it thickens the broth slightly and gives it body.
Celery
Adds a fresh, aromatic vegetable flavour and a bit of crunch when added late.

The step that matters

Stir in the butter and flour, cooking until well combined. Flour clumps if it hits hot liquid unmixed. Blending it fully with the butter first, then cooking it through, lets it thicken the broth smoothly instead of leaving lumps.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, butter, flour):

  1. Jalapenofits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, flour. 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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