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Chicken Soup

A hearty chicken soup with rice, onion, celery, bacon, cream, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Chicken Soup

Why it works: Celery and pepper 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 ↓

Chicken Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Place the cut-up chicken in a pot with 3 quarts of cold water and a little coarse sea salt.

  2. Bring to a boil quickly, then skim off any foam.

  3. Once the chicken is tender, remove it from the pot and take the meat off the bones.

  4. Return the bones to the pot for added flavor, along with a few slices of bacon.

Finish the soup

  1. Add ½ cup of rice, ½ small onion, and 1 chopped celery stalk.

  2. Season with salt and pepper.

  3. Mix 1 tablespoon of flour with a little milk.

  4. Add the flour mixture to the pot along with 1 cup of cream.

  5. Strain the soup through a sieve.

Serve

  1. Serve in bouillon cups with a spoonful of whipped cream.

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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Rice + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,169 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the meat and the flavorful broth that forms the base of the soup.
Rice
Adds body and soft texture as it cooks in the broth.
Flour
Thickens the soup slightly when stirred in with milk and added to the pot.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy mouthfeel to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Skimming the foam after the boil. Foam contains proteins and impurities that cloud the broth and can taste bitter, so removing it early keeps the soup clear and clean-flavored.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, rice, celery, pepper, flour, milk, cream. 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 →

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