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Chicken Soup

A hearty soup made from chopped chicken, boiled ham, eggs, bread crumbs, cream, and herbs.

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

Why it works: Ham and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,536 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Chicken Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Chop the chickens and mash the bones.

  2. If desired, add a few slices of boiled ham.

  3. Stew the mixture slowly until it falls apart.

  4. Pour in 3 quarts of boiling water and boil down to ½ gallon.

Make the cream mixture

  1. Chop the hearts and yolks of the hard boiled eggs.

  2. Stir the chopped hearts and yolks into 1 cup of rich sweet cream with 1½ cups of grated bread crumbs.

Finish the soup

  1. Strain the soup and return it to the kettle with a bouquet of herbs.

  2. Boil for 5 minutes, then stir in the cream mixture and remove from heat.

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. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  2. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Chicken + hamtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,497 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Chicken + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,258 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity).

  5. Ham + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Chickens
Provide the meat and bones that build the body and flavour of the broth.
Bread crumbs
Thicken the cream mixture, giving it body so it blends smoothly into the soup.
Rich sweet cream
Adds richness and fat, softening the flavour and giving a silky texture.
Hard boiled egg yolks
Enrich the soup with fat and a creamy, mellow texture when stirred in.

The step that matters

Stir the cream mixture in after boiling. The cream and egg mixture can curdle or separate if boiled hard, so it is added after a brief boil and the pan is taken off the heat.

“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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