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Chicken Soup

A hearty soup made with veal or lamb, chicken, onions, carrots, and seasonings.

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

Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Chicken Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Boil veal or lamb and chicken in water.

  2. Skim the surface to clear the broth.

  3. Add onions and carrots to the soup.

  4. Stir in salt and pepper.

  5. Let the soup boil gently for nearly 2 hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Mix butter and flour together.

  2. Add the butter and flour mixture to the soup.

  3. Cover the soup for 15 minutes.

  4. Serve in a tureen, garnished with parsley.

  5. For the chicken, add butter and pepper.

  6. Serve the chicken separately.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal or lamb
Releases flavour and gelatin into the water, giving the broth body and savouriness.
Chicken
Adds meaty flavour to the broth and is served separately as a second course.
Onions
Contribute sweetness and aroma as they soften and release their flavour into the broth.
Carrots
Add gentle sweetness and colour to the broth as they cook.
Flour
Thickens the soup slightly when mixed with butter and stirred in.

The step that matters

Skim the surface to clear the broth. Foam and fat rising during the first boil can cloud the broth and give it a greasy taste. Skimming early keeps the soup clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, chicken, carrot, pepper, butter, flour, parsley):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, chicken, carrot, pepper, butter, flour, parsley. 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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