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Chicken Broth

A clear chicken broth with rice, onion, parsley, and a creamy egg custard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Chicken Broth

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Chicken Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Heat the chicken stock in a pot until it boils.

  2. Add the soaked rice, chopped onion, salt, and pepper.

  3. Cook steadily for 30 minutes, or until the rice is soft.

  4. Stir in the chopped parsley and cook for an additional 10 minutes.

Make the thickened milk

  1. In another saucepan, heat the milk until scalding.

  2. Mix the butter with the corn starch until smooth, then stir into the hot milk.

  3. Cook for 3 minutes, stirring to prevent lumps.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove from heat and beat in the whipped egg.

  2. Return to heat for 1 minute, stirring vigorously.

  3. Pour the soup into a tureen, stirring continuously to prevent curdling.

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

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

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

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

  3. Rice + corntop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken stock
Forms the liquid base and carries the flavour of the whole soup.
Rice
Softens and thickens the broth as it cooks, adding body to the soup.
Milk
Adds richness and a creamy body to the finished soup.
Corn starch
Thickens the milk mixture so the soup becomes smooth and velvety.
Egg
Enriches the soup and adds body when gently heated into it.

The step that matters

Beat the whipped egg into the soup off the heat, then reheat gently. Egg proteins set and curdle when they meet high heat directly. Removing the pan from heat before adding the egg, and stirring constantly while reheating, keeps the egg smooth and evenly blended.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, rice, onion, pepper, milk, butter, corn):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Celeryfits about as well
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, rice, onion, pepper, milk, butter, corn. 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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