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Chicken Cream Soup

A creamy soup made with chicken, egg yolks, milk, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Chicken Cream Soup

Why it works: Chicken and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,814 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, sweet. The science ↓

Chicken Cream Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Season the chicken with salt and pepper.

  2. If desired, add the onion to the chicken.

  3. Boil 4 quarts of water down to 2 quarts.

  4. Cook the chicken until done, then remove the breast and chop it fine.

Finish the soup

  1. Add the chopped chicken and egg yolks to the broth and simmer for a few minutes.

  2. Finally, add the boiling hot milk and stir in the cream.

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

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

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

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

  3. Chicken + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,389 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  4. Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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 flavor base for the broth and the chopped chicken in the soup.
Egg yolks
Thicken the soup slightly and add richness as they set when heated.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mild sweetness, giving the soup a smooth, mellow body.
Cream
Adds fat for a richer mouthfeel and a smoother, velvety texture.

The step that matters

Adding the milk to the hot broth. The milk is added boiling hot, as the record states. Adding cold dairy to a simmering broth can cause it to curdle or separate, so keep the heat gentle once the milk and cream go in.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pepper, egg, milk, cream. 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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