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Chicken Broth

A clear chicken broth with rice, milk, eggs, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Chicken Broth

Why it works: Rice and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,374 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Chicken Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Soak the chicken in salt and water for 1 hour.

  2. Place the chicken in a soup kettle with the onion and water.

  3. Bring to a gentle boil and simmer until the liquid reduces by one-third and the meat shrinks from the bones.

  4. Remove the chicken, season with salt, and set aside with 1 cup of broth covered until tomorrow.

Make the soup

  1. Season the remaining broth and return it to the heat.

  2. Bring to a boil, skim, and add the soaked rice.

  3. Cook slowly until the rice is tender.

  4. Stir the hot milk into the beaten eggs, then add to the soup.

  5. Let the soup come to a barely boiling point, then stir in the parsley and serve.

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. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

  2. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Rice + parsleytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,762 recipes

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

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Old fowl
Releases flavour and gelatin into the water as it simmers, giving the broth body.
Rice
Softens and thickens the broth as it cooks, adding body to the soup.
Eggs
Set into soft ribbons when stirred into hot liquid, enriching texture and colour.
Milk
Adds richness and a mild sweetness, softening the broth's savoury edge.

The step that matters

Stirring the milk and eggs into the soup. If the soup boils after the eggs go in, the egg proteins tighten and curdle into grainy shreds instead of forming smooth ribbons. Keep the soup at a barely boiling point so the eggs set gently.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, milk, egg, parsley):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk, egg, parsley. 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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