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Soup

Chicken Broth

A soup made by boiling chickens in water, then thickened with rice, milk, rice flour and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Chicken Broth

Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chickens

  1. Draw, stuff, and truss the chickens for roasting.

  2. Tie their legs and wings close to their bodies with soft pack-thread.

  3. Place the chickens in a pot with 4 quarts of cold water and a little coarse sea salt.

  4. Boil gently for at least 1 hour.

  5. Check for tenderness with a fork.

  6. If it pierces the breast easily, remove the chickens, butter them well, and keep warm covered.

Make the broth and rice

  1. Take out 1 cup of broth when the chickens are three-quarters done to cook the rice.

  2. Strain the broth after removing the chickens.

  3. Season with pepper and chopped parsley, then return to the heat.

  4. Skim off any scum that rises and boil hard for 15 minutes.

  5. Add ½ cup of rice that has been stewed soft in a little water.

  6. Simmer for 15 minutes.

Thicken and serve

  1. In a separate bowl, stir 1 tablespoon of rice flour into 1 cup of milk.

  2. Bring to a slow boil.

  3. Pour a few spoonfuls of the hot broth into the milk mixture, then return it to the soup and stir well.

  4. In the bottom of a tureen, place the giblets and 1 finely chopped hard-boiled egg.

  5. Pour the broth over them.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Chicken + ricetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,769 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

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

  4. Parsley + ricetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,762 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rice flour
Thickens the milk mixture so the soup becomes creamy and lightly body-rich.
Rice
Softened in broth, it adds body and a soft, thickened texture to the soup.
Milk
Adds richness and creaminess to the soup once thickened with rice flour.
Eggs
Beaten eggs are listed in the ingredients but no step states how they are used.

The step that matters

Add the milk mixture gently. Hot broth must be added to the milk-flour mixture a little at a time and stirred well, so the flour disperses evenly and the milk does not curdle or form lumps.

Swap the parsley

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pepper, rice, milk, flour, 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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