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Chicken Soup

A creamy soup made with chicken stock, butter, flour, bread crumbs, vegetables, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Chicken Soup

Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Chicken Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the soup

  1. Finely chop the vegetables: carrot, onion, and celery.

  2. In a pot, cook the chopped vegetables in 3 tablespoons of butter for 3 minutes.

  3. Add the chicken stock and bread crumbs, then boil for 10 minutes and strain the mixture.

Thicken and season

  1. Return the strained liquid to the pot, add the milk, and thicken with the remaining butter and flour cooked together.

  2. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

  3. For a richer soup, substitute 1 cup of cream for 1 cup of milk.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken stock
Forms the liquid base of the soup and carries the flavor of the vegetables.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and cooks the vegetables gently before the soup is built.
Flour
Thickens the soup when cooked with butter, giving it a smoother body.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mild sweetness, softening the savory broth.
Bread crumbs
Boiled into the stock, they help thicken and give the soup body.

The step that matters

Thickening the soup with butter and flour. Cooking the butter and flour together forms a roux, which thickens the liquid evenly. Adding it raw or in clumps can leave lumps or a pasty taste.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, flour, butter, bread, carrot, pepper, celery. 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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