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Dinner for 12 Persons

A creamy chicken soup made with a whole chicken, broth, cream, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Dinner for 12 Persons

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the broth

  1. In a large pot, cover the fowl with water and add salt, onion, carrot, celery, bay leaf, and thyme.

  2. Simmer until the fowl is cooked through, about 1 hour.

  3. Remove the fowl and strain the broth.

Make the soup

  1. In a separate pan, melt butter and stir in flour to make a roux.

  2. Gradually add the strained broth, stirring until thickened.

  3. Add cream and lemon juice, then return the fowl to the pot.

  4. Serve hot.

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.

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 + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Thyme + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Celery + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,193 recipes

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

  5. Celery + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fowl
Provides the meat and flavor for the soup, cooked tender in the simmering broth.
Butter
Carries the flour for the roux and adds richness to the soup.
Flour
Thickens the broth into a smooth, creamy base when cooked with butter.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture to the finished soup.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the rich, creamy soup.

The step that matters

Make the roux and add the broth gradually. Cooking flour in butter before adding liquid coats the starch granules so they disperse evenly. Adding broth slowly while stirring prevents lumps and gives a smooth, thickened base.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, carrot, celery, thyme, cream, flour, lemon):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, carrot, celery, thyme, cream, flour, lemon. 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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