Name: Chicken Broth
Ingredients: 4 quarts good stock; 1 tablespoon rice; ½ teaspoon thyme; 1 medium-sized onion; 1 teaspoon chopped parsley; 1 teaspoon salt; ¼ teaspoon pepper; 1 slice ham

Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Chicken Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

Combine stock, rice, thyme, onion, salt, pepper, and ham in a pan.
Simmer gently for one hour.
Remove the onion, skim off herbs and fat, and take out the ham.

Serve

Place chopped parsley in a soup tureen and pour in the broth to serve.
Optionally, thicken the soup with 1 tablespoon of arrowroot.

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.

Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,057 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,585 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Thyme + oniontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,171 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together25,843 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

Rice: Thickens the broth slightly as it simmers and softens.
Ham: Adds savory, smoky flavor to the broth as it simmers.
Onion: Contributes sweetness and aroma to the broth as it simmers.
Arrowroot (in the method): Thickens the broth into a smoother, glossier body when added optionally.