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Chicken Soup

A soup made with a whole chicken, water, rice, flour, salt, pepper, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Chicken Soup

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 Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Simmer the chicken

  1. Quarter the chicken and add 1 quart of water for each pound.

  2. Bring to a gentle boil and cook until the meat drops from the bones.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the cooked rice, parsley, flour, salt, and pepper.

  2. Stir well and serve hot.

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 + parsleytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,762 recipes

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

  4. Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the meat and flavor base as it simmers into the broth.
Cooked rice
Adds body and starch, thickening the soup slightly as the grains soften.
Flour
Thickens the broth as its starch swells in the hot liquid.

The step that matters

Keep the boil gentle. Vigorous boiling toughens the meat's proteins and churns fat into the liquid, leaving the meat tough and the broth cloudy. A gentle simmer keeps the chicken tender and the soup clear while the meat releases its flavor.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Cardamomfits about as well
  3. Cuminfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, rice, flour, pepper. 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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