Skip to main content
Main

Chicken

A chicken soup made with rice, broth, and optional vegetables or vermicelli.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Rice and chicken 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 ↓

Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Make the rice base

  1. Combine rice and light broth in a stewpan.

  2. Boil gently until the rice becomes a pulp.

  3. Add the cooked chicken wing or leg.

  4. Warm for about 5 minutes.

  5. If the rice is dry, add more broth.

Prepare the chicken

  1. Warm the chicken in a stewpan with a few spoonfuls of stock.

  2. Lightly oil the chicken.

  3. Warm it gently on a grill.

  4. Broil the chicken on a grill.

Make the broth and serve

  1. Add salt and butter to boiling water.

  2. Add the chicken.

  3. Simmer for 20 minutes.

  4. Add vegetables to the water.

  5. Strain after removing the chicken.

  6. Add vermicelli.

  7. Boil for 5 minutes.

  8. Serve on a hot plate.

  9. Serve with a little light gravy.

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. Rice + chickentop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,769 recipes

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

  2. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  3. Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Breaks down into a pulp, thickening the soup and giving it body.
Light broth
Provides the main liquid and savory flavor of the soup.
Cooked chicken
Supplies the meat and rich, savory flavor to the soup.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the broth.
Vermicelli
Adds thin pasta strands that soften in the hot broth for texture.

The step that matters

Boil the rice until it becomes a pulp. Rice releases starch as it cooks and breaks down, which thickens the broth. Too little gentle boiling leaves it grainy, while a hard boil can scorch the bottom of the pan and stick.

“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.

More chicken soup recipes

White 9Almond 8Creamy 7Friar's 6Plain 5with Dumplings 3 See all 163 →

You might also like

Chicken BrothChicken Broth257 recipesCreamed ChickenCreamed Chicken89 recipesRice FrittersRice Fritters84 recipesChicken PanadaChicken Panada75 recipes