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White Chicken Soup

A light chicken broth thickened with rice, cream, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

White Chicken Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Cut up the chicken and break the bones.

  2. Put the chicken into a saucepan with the cold water and salt.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  4. Add the mace and onion.

  5. Simmer gently for four hours, skimming occasionally.

  6. Strain the broth.

  7. Let the broth cool.

  8. Remove all traces of fat.

  9. Return the broth to the saucepan.

Thicken and finish

  1. Mix the ground rice smoothly with a little cold milk or stock.

  2. Stir the rice mixture into the broth.

  3. Boil gently for eight minutes.

  4. Mix the cream and egg yolks.

  5. Season the mixture.

  6. Strain the mixture into the soup.

  7. Cook gently for one more minute.

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

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

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

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

  3. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

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

  4. Onion + macetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

  5. Mace + ricetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together932 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Ground rice
Thickens the broth as its starch swells and gelatinises during gentle boiling.
Egg yolks
Enrich the soup and add body as they thicken it when heated gently.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the soup.
Chicken
Gives the broth its main meaty flavour and body during long simmering.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolk and cream mixture. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if the soup is too hot. Keep the heat gentle and avoid a rolling boil once they go in, so the soup stays smooth and silky.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, onion, cream, egg, rice. 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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