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A chicken soup made with milk, broth, onion, parsley, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Dinner Dishes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Boil the old fowl gently for 4 hours, adding salt when removing from heat.

  2. Transfer the chicken and broth to a bowl.

  3. Refrigerate overnight.

  4. Skim off the fat from the broth.

  5. Strain the broth, reserving the meat for croquettes or scallops.

Finish the soup

  1. Heat the broth with chopped onion, salt, and pepper, and boil for 30 minutes.

  2. Line a colander with a thick cloth and strain the liquid, squeezing to extract onion flavor.

  3. Return the strained soup to the saucepan.

  4. Add minced parsley and bring to a boil.

  5. Scald the milk with a bit of baking soda in a farina kettle.

  6. Stir the hot milk into the soup.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  3. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Chicken + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,389 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

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

What each ingredient does

Old fowl
Provides the meat and rich flavor that make the broth.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mild sweetness to the soup.
Baking soda
Raises the milk's pH slightly, which helps keep it from curdling when scalded.

The step that matters

Stirring the hot milk into the soup. Milk can curdle when it meets acidic or very hot liquid. Scalding it with a little baking soda raises its pH and helps it stay smooth, so the soup should be kept at a gentle heat when the milk goes in.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, onion, pepper, milk):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Celeryfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, onion, pepper, milk. 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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