Why it works: Parsley and barley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 630 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓
Potage 1 LA Reine—
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the chicken
Skin the chickens and remove the lungs.
Wash them clean and place in a pot with parsley.
Moisten with boiling broth and stew for 1 hour.
Make the base
Remove the chickens and soak the bread crumbs in the broth.
Take the flesh from the chickens and pound it with the egg yolks and soaked bread crumbs.
Rub through a fine sieve.
Finish the soup
Heat the cream in a pot, stirring continuously until it boils.
Pour it into the soup.
If using barley, rice, or vermicelli, cook them in broth beforehand and add to the soup when done.
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.
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Parsley + barleytop 10% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together630 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Chicken + barleytop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together265 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
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Chicken + parsleytop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,314 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Parsley + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,765 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Chicken + creamtop 23% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together6,241 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Chickens
- Provide the main flesh that is pounded into the body of the soup.
- Egg yolks
- Add richness and help bind the pounded mixture into a smooth soup.
- Bread crumbs
- Soak up broth and thicken the soup, adding body to the pounded mixture.
- Cream
- Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the finished soup.
The step that matters
Rub through a fine sieve. Pressing the pounded mixture through a fine sieve removes fibers and lumps, so the soup turns smooth rather than grainy.
Swap the parsley
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, egg, cream, barley):
- Nutmegfits better
- Celeryfits better
- Garlicfits about as well
- Parsleythe original
Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, egg, cream, barley. 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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