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Chicken Soup

A simple soup made by simmering half a chicken with water, salt, cloves, rice or barley, and toasted bread strips.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Chicken Soup

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

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Cut up half of the chicken and place it in a saucepan with 2 quarts of water.

  2. Boil slowly, adding a pinch of salt and 3 cloves, until the water reduces to 1 pint.

  3. Pour off the liquid and let it cool completely.

  4. Skim off the grease and return the liquid to the saucepan.

Finish and serve

  1. Heat the broth when ready to use.

  2. For chicken broth, use the dark meat and boil with 1 tablespoon of rice or barley.

  3. Skim off the fat and serve as soon as the rice is cooked.

  4. Add a few narrow strips of well-toasted bread before serving.

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

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

  2. Clove + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  3. Rice + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,259 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity).

  5. Clove + breadtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,129 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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 meaty flavour and body as it simmers.
Water
Draws flavour and body out of the chicken as it simmers.
Cloves
Add a warm, aromatic flavour to the broth.
Rice or barley
Its starch thickens the broth slightly and adds body as it cooks.

The step that matters

Cooling the liquid before skimming the grease. Fat floats on hot liquid and is hard to remove cleanly. Once the broth cools completely, the fat solidifies on the surface, so it can be lifted off in one piece.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, rice, bread):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, rice, bread. 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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