Skip to main content
Main

Chicken Soup

A broth made with chicken, vegetables, vermicelli, cream, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Chicken Soup

Why it works: Parsnip and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 590 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Chicken Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Cut up the chicken and add it to nearly boiling water.

  2. Add the chopped vegetables, giblets, mace, and cloves.

  3. Boil for 2 hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Strain the mixture and add crushed vermicelli, cream, parsley, and some pieces of chicken.

  2. Return to the saucepan and boil for 5 minutes.

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. Parsnip + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together590 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  3. Parsnip + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together484 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  5. Celery + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Gives the broth its main flavour and body as it simmers for a long time.
Vermicelli
Thin pasta that softens in the hot broth and adds body to the soup.
Cream
Adds richness and a smoother, softer mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Parsnip
Adds sweetness and body to the broth as it cooks down.

The step that matters

Return to the saucepan and boil for 5 minutes. Once cream is added, prolonged rolling boil can cause it to separate or curdle. A short, controlled boil keeps the soup smooth while heating it through.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, celery, parsnip, turnip, parsley, cream, pepper):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, celery, parsnip, turnip, parsley, cream, 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.

More chicken soup recipes

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

You might also like

Chicken BrothChicken Broth257 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesCreamed ChickenCreamed Chicken89 recipesChicken PanadaChicken Panada75 recipes