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Rice Soup, with Chicken

A simple soup of rice and shredded chicken simmered in broth, seasoned with salt and pepper, garnished with parsley.

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

Rice Soup, with Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Rinse the rice under cold water until the water runs clear.

Make the soup

  1. In a pot, bring the chicken broth to a boil.

  2. Add the rice and cook until tender, about 15-20 minutes.

  3. Stir in the shredded chicken and season with salt and pepper.

Serve

  1. Serve hot, garnished with chopped parsley.

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

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

  2. Rice + chickentop 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. Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Starch that softens as it cooks, thickening the broth and giving the soup body.
Chicken broth
Liquid base that cooks the rice and carries the flavour of the whole soup.
Cooked chicken
Adds protein and savoury meaty texture to the soup.

The step that matters

Cooking the rice until tender. Rice keeps absorbing liquid and swelling after it leaves the heat, so it can turn mushy if overcooked or left sitting. Checking tenderness at the low end of the stated time helps keep the texture right.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Celeryfits about as well
  3. Corianderfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, 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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