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Chicken Soup

A clear chicken broth thickened with cream and flour, served with cooked rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Chicken Soup

Why it works: Chicken and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,769 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓

Chicken Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Cut up the chicken and place it in a pot with cold water.

  2. Bring to a boil and let it simmer for 5 to 6 hours.

  3. Strain the stock through a colander and set aside until the next day.

  4. Skim off the fat when the stock has cooled and resembles jelly.

Finish and serve

  1. Fifteen minutes before serving, heat the jelly stock until boiling.

  2. Add the cream or milk and thicken with flour mixed with a tablespoon of cold milk.

  3. Season with salt and pepper.

  4. Just before serving, stir in the cooked rice and add onion juice if desired.

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

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

  2. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  3. Rice + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Rice + peppertop 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

Chicken
Provides the meat and the gelatin-rich body that gives the stock its jelly-like set.
Cream or milk
Adds richness and a smooth, mellow body to the broth.
Flour
Thickens the broth as its starch swells with heat.
Cooked rice
Adds bulk and soft texture to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Thickening with flour. Flour must be mixed smooth with cold liquid before it goes in, or it clumps. Starch only thickens properly when the hot liquid is kept moving and brought to a simmer, so it can swell evenly.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, cream, flour, rice, pepper):

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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