Skip to main content
Soup

Chicken Cream Soup

A soup made from a chicken or turkey carcass, broth, onions, potatoes, turnip, rice, milk, butter, and cornstarch.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Chicken Cream Soup

Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Chicken Cream Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Break the bones of the chicken or turkey carcass and cover with 1 quart of cold water.

  2. Simmer for 2 hours, adding boiling water as needed to maintain the original quantity.

  3. Strain the broth and return it to the kettle.

Make the soup

  1. Add the chopped onion, grated potatoes, grated turnip, and rice.

  2. Boil until the rice is very soft.

  3. Strain again and return to the kettle.

  4. Add 1 pint of milk, 1 teaspoon of cornstarch mixed with 1 tablespoon of butter, and season with salt and pepper.

  5. Serve 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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Chicken + ricetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,769 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  3. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Potato + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together851 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Softens as it boils, thickening the soup and giving it body.
Potatoes
Break down as they cook, adding starch that thickens the soup and gives it body.
Milk
Adds richness and a creamy texture to the finished soup.
Cornstarch
Thickens the soup as it heats, giving it a smoother, creamier body.
Butter
Adds fat and a rounded flavor, and coats the cornstarch for smoother thickening.

The step that matters

Adding the milk and cornstarch-butter mixture. Once the soup is hot, adding cornstarch mixed with butter helps it thicken smoothly without lumps. Keep the soup from boiling hard after the milk goes in, since milk can scorch on the bottom of the pot and curdle at high heat.

Swap the turnip

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, onion, potato, rice, milk, butter, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, onion, potato, rice, milk, butter, pepper. 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.

You might also like

Indian Spiced Potato Soup with Tofu and SpinachIndian Spiced Potato Soup with Tofu and Spinach448 recipesCream of Potato SoupCream of Potato Soup38 recipesClear Carrot and Bottle Gourd SoupClear Carrot and Bottle Gourd Soup65 recipesMock Bisque SoupMock Bisque Soup51 recipes