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Chicken Soup

A hearty soup made with hens, ham hock, rice, tomatoes, corn, thyme, flour, and butter.

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

Why it works: Tomato and thyme are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,370 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Chicken Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Place hens and ham hock in a soup pot.

  2. Add washed rice and salt, then fill the pot nearly full with cold water.

  3. Bring to a boil. If desired, add peeled tomatoes, green corn, and chopped thyme.

Finish and serve

  1. Before serving, mix flour and butter together, then stir into the soup.

  2. Bring soup to a boil again and 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. Tomato + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,370 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Rice + corntop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together933 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + corntop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,099 recipes

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

  4. Rice + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,065 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Rice + thymetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together912 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Hens
Release flavour and body into the broth as they simmer.
Ham hock
Adds smoky, savoury depth to the broth.
Washed rice
Absorbs liquid and softens, thickening the soup slightly.
Flour
Thickens the soup when stirred in with butter.
Butter
Adds richness and helps flour blend smoothly into the soup.

The step that matters

Stirring in the flour and butter. Flour added directly to hot liquid clumps. Mixing it with butter first coats the particles so they disperse evenly and thicken the soup smoothly.

Swap the tomato

The recipe marks tomato as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, rice, corn, thyme, flour, butter):

  1. Okrafits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, rice, corn, thyme, flour, butter. 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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