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Chicken Soup

A simple chicken soup with rice, herbs, and optional dumplings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Chicken Soup

Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Chicken Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the chicken.

  2. Place the chicken in a pot, cover with water, and add salt.

  3. Pick and wash the rice.

Make the soup

  1. Add the rice, sweet herbs, onions, and celery to the pot when the water begins to boil.

  2. Add the minced parsley and let the soup boil for a few minutes.

  3. Season with pepper and salt to taste.

  4. If desired, add allspice or substitute noodles or dumplings for the rice.

Make and add dumplings

  1. Mix butter, flour, and enough water to form a soft dough for dumplings.

  2. Drop teaspoonfuls of the dough into the boiling soup and let them cook for a few minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve with drawn butter.

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. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + allspicetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,289 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main meat and flavour as the soup simmers in water.
Rice
Thickens the broth slightly and adds body as it cooks.
Onions
Add sweetness and savoury depth to the broth as they soften.
Flour
Binds with butter and water to form a soft dough that holds its shape in the broth.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the dumplings and the drawn butter served on top.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, rice, onion, celery, parsley, pepper, butter. 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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