Why it works: Onion and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 34% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 23,333 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓
Chicken Cream Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Cook the chicken
Boil the chicken and onion in 4 quarts of cold water until only 2 quarts remain.
Remove the chicken and let it cool.
Cut off the entire breast and chop it very finely.
Make the cream soup
Mix the chopped breast with the pounded yolks of 2 hard-boiled eggs and rub through a colander.
Cool, skim, and strain the soup into a soup pot.
Season to taste.
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.
-
Onion + eggtop 34% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together23,333 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Onion and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 23,333 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Fowl
- Gives the soup its body and meaty flavor as it simmers in the water.
- Hard-boiled eggs
- Their pounded yolks enrich the soup and help it turn creamy and thick.
- Onion
- Adds aromatic sweetness and depth to the broth while it cooks.
The step that matters
Rub the breast and yolks through a colander. Pressing the finely chopped meat and yolks through a colander breaks them into very small particles. Well-pulverized solids stay suspended and give a smooth, creamy texture instead of a gritty one.
“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.
You might also like
Tomato Soup526 recipes
Brown Bread461 recipes
Mutton Broth292 recipes
Yorkshire Pudding264 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.