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Chicken Bisque

A creamy chicken soup made with stock, roux, bread crumbs, minced chicken, parsley, milk, butter, and egg.

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

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Chicken Bisque

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Heat the chicken stock in a pot.

  2. Add the bread crumbs and let it boil.

  3. Stir in the minced chicken and bring to a boil again.

  4. Add the chopped parsley and white roux, then boil for one minute.

  5. If you are short on stock, heat the milk and stir in the butter and bread crumbs, then add to the stock.

  6. Boil for one minute, then remove from heat and beat in the well-whipped egg before serving.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Chicken + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,389 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

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

What each ingredient does

White roux
Thickens the stock into a smooth, body-rich bisque as its starch gelatinizes with heat.
Well-whipped egg
Enriches and thickens the bisque when beaten in off the heat, adding richness and body.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and add body, helping the bisque thicken and hold together.
Minced chicken
Provides the main protein and savory flavor of the bisque.

The step that matters

Beat in the egg off the heat. Egg proteins set at high temperature and can curdle or scramble if the bisque is still boiling. Removing it from the heat first lets the egg thicken it smoothly.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, bread, pepper, milk, butter, egg):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Cinnamonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, bread, pepper, milk, butter, egg. 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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