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Chicken Vegetable Soup

A hearty soup made with a whole hen, potatoes, onion, parsley, celery seed, summer savory, red pepper, and sweet milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and summer savory match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 241 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Chicken Vegetable Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Wash the hen and place it whole in a porcelain kettle with 1 gallon of water.

  2. Boil for 2 hours.

  3. After 1 hour, add the sliced potatoes, chopped onion, parsley, celery seed, summer savory, and red pepper.

  4. When nearly done, stir in 1 pint of sweet 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.

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 + summer savorytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together241 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  5. Celery + summer savorytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together106 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Fat hen
Simmered whole to produce the rich broth that forms the base of the soup.
Irish potatoes
Soften during simmering and thicken the broth slightly as their starch releases.
Sweet milk
Adds creaminess and mellows the broth's flavor when stirred in near the end.
Onion
Builds savory aromatic depth as it softens into the broth.

The step that matters

Stirring in the milk when nearly done. Milk can curdle or scorch if it boils hard for a long time or is added to a very hot, vigorously boiling liquid. Adding it near the end, at a gentle simmer, keeps it smooth and fresh-tasting.

Swap the summer savory

The recipe marks summer savory as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, onion, parsley, celery, pepper, milk):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Dillfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Summer savorythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, onion, parsley, celery, pepper, milk. 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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