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Cream of Chicken

A creamy soup made with chicken broth, milk, cream, butter, flour, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cream of Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Stir in the flour and cook for a minute.

  3. Gradually add the cold chicken broth, stirring constantly until thickened.

  4. Stir in the milk and cream, and season with salt, pepper, and celery salt.

  5. Heat until boiling hot, then serve.

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.

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 + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + chickentop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,389 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds fat and flavor to the roux that starts the soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup when cooked with butter and then combined with the broth.
Chicken broth
Forms the liquid base that the roux thickens into a soup.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mild sweetness to the finished soup.
Cream
Adds richness and body, giving the soup a smooth, velvety texture.

The step that matters

Adding the broth gradually. Adding cold broth slowly while stirring constantly lets the starch in the flour disperse evenly. Dumping it in at once causes lumps that are hard to smooth out.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, milk, cream, chicken, 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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