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 ↓
Chicken Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fowl
Cut up the fowl and wash the parts.
Boil the fowl in water for 1 hour.
Season and make dumplings
Stir in thickening, salt, pepper, and parsley to season.
Make dumplings by mixing flour and butter, then roll into small balls.
Finish and serve
Add dumplings to the soup and boil for 15 minutes or until the fowl flesh is loose on the bones.
Stir in the egg yolks and boil for an additional 10 minutes.
Remove the fowl from the pot, shred the meat, and mince the livers and gizzards.
Place the fowl parts in a tureen, pour in the soup, and serve.
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.
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Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together34,122 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together16,675 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together28,563 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
- Provides the meat and flavourful broth as it simmers in the water.
- Flour
- Forms the dumplings and thickens the soup as starch binds with liquid.
- Butter
- Adds richness and tenderness to the dumplings through fat.
- Egg yolks
- Enrich and thicken the soup as the proteins set with gentle heat.
The step that matters
Stirring in the egg yolks. Yolks can curdle or turn grainy if the soup is boiling hard when they go in. Keeping the heat gentle helps them thicken the broth smoothly.
Swap the parsley
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, flour, butter, egg):
- Parsleythe original
- Nutmegfits about as well
- Capersfits less well
- Tarragonfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, flour, butter, 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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