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Chicken-soup, with Potatoes

A hearty chicken soup made with chicken, ham bone, veal knuckle, potatoes, rice-meat, chervil, and optional egg yolks and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and rice 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-soup, with Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Clean and truss the chicken, placing it in a stewpan with the neck, pinions, and gizzard.

  2. Add the ham bone and knuckle of veal, then moisten with water or broth.

  3. Bring to a boil, skimming the surface, and cook like a stock-pot.

  4. Once the chicken is done, strain the broth into another stewpan and skim off the fat.

Finish the soup

  1. Thicken the broth with rice-meat and dilute with cold water.

  2. Boil for 15 minutes, then add the blanched potato-balls.

  3. Continue boiling until the potatoes are cooked, then mix in sliced chicken and chopped chervil.

  4. Serve in a tureen.

  5. Optionally, thicken with egg yolks and cream, omitting chervil.

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

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

  2. Potato + cherviltop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together96 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Rice + potatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together851 recipes

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

  4. Chicken + potatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,756 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-decenal (green, must).

  5. Rice + cherviltop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together91 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 body and flavour, and its meat is served in the soup.
Ham bone
Adds savoury, smoky depth to the broth as it simmers.
Rice-meat
Thickens the broth so it has body rather than running thin.
Potato-balls
Add starchy, tender pieces that soften in the hot broth.
Egg yolks
Optional; enrich and thicken the soup with richness and smoothness.

The step that matters

Skimming the surface as the broth comes to a boil. Impurities and fat rise to the surface as the liquid heats. Skimming them early keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting, and removing fat after straining keeps it from tasting greasy.

Swap the chervil

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, ham, veal, rice, meat, potato, egg):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Chervilthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, ham, veal, rice, meat, potato, egg. 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.

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