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Soup

Chicken Broth

A clear broth made by simmering chicken bones, onion, carrot, turnip, parsley, salt, pepper, and rice or vermicelli.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Chicken Broth

Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Chicken Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Boil the chicken in water and set aside in a cool place to make broth.

  2. The next day, skim off all the fat.

  3. Put the chicken bones into a soup pot with the broth.

  4. Add the onion, carrot, turnip, parsley, salt, and pepper.

  5. Let it boil for two hours.

Finish the soup

  1. Remove the bones and add the rice or vermicelli.

  2. Let it boil for one hour.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  4. Turnip + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rice or vermicelli
Softens as it cooks and thickens the broth slightly with its starch.
Onion
Adds savory sweetness and aroma as it softens in the broth.
Carrot
Adds natural sweetness and body to the broth.
Turnip
Adds mild earthy flavor and body to the broth.

The step that matters

Skim off all the fat. Fat that is not removed after chilling stays on the broth and makes it greasy and cloudy. Removing the solidified fat before reheating gives a clearer, lighter broth.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, carrot, turnip, parsley, pepper, rice):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, carrot, turnip, parsley, pepper, rice. 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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