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Chicken Broth

A clear soup made by simmering a whole chicken with water, rice, mace, pepper, and salt, served with vermicelli.

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

Why it works: Chicken and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,769 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓

Chicken Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Wash the chicken pieces and place them in a stewpan with water.

  2. Add rice, mace, whole white pepper, and salt.

  3. Bring to a boil, skim frequently, and then simmer for 3 hours.

Finish and serve

  1. In the last 5 minutes, boil the vermicelli in the soup.

  2. Serve the vermicelli in the soup.

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

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

  2. Mace + white peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  3. Rice + macetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together932 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Rice + white peppertop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together439 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Chicken + macetop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,208 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Gives the broth its meaty flavour and body as it simmers for hours.
Rice
Adds body and gentle thickening to the broth as its starch releases during simmering.
Vermicelli
Adds a soft, starchy bite to the soup when cooked briefly in the hot broth.

The step that matters

Skimming the broth as it comes to a boil. Skimming removes foam and coagulated proteins that would otherwise cloud the broth and make it taste muddy, so the broth stays clear and clean-flavoured.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, rice, mace):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Gingerfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, rice, mace. 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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