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Chicken Soup

A broth made by simmering a whole chicken with water, thickened with flour, and finished with rice, cream, herbs, salt, and pepper.

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

Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Chicken Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Place the chicken in a large pot and pour in the cold water.

  2. Set the pot on the back of the stove to cook slowly for 3 hours.

  3. Skim the surface several times during cooking.

  4. Once cooked, move the pot to a higher heat to bring it to a slow boil.

Finish the soup

  1. Mix the flour with a little cold water and add it to the pot to thicken the soup.

  2. Stir in the rice, cream or milk, and season with salt and pepper.

  3. Just before serving, add the chopped parsley and thyme.

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 + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  3. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Rice + parsleytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,762 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Releases flavor and body into the water as it simmers slowly.
Flour
Thickens the broth when mixed with cold water and heated in the soup.
Rice
Absorbs liquid and softens, adding bulk and body to the soup.
Cream or sweet milk
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy texture to the broth.

The step that matters

Thickening with the flour mixture. Flour must be mixed smoothly with cold water before adding it to hot liquid. Added dry or lumpy, starch clumps and does not disperse, leaving lumps instead of an even, thickened broth.

Swap the thyme

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

  1. Turmericfits about as well
  2. Celeryfits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Thymethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, flour, rice, cream, pepper, parsley. 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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