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Chicken Cream Soup

A soup made from a chicken or turkey carcass, broth, onions, potatoes, turnip, rice, milk, butter, and cornstarch.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Chicken Cream Soup

Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Chicken Cream Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Break the bones of the chicken or turkey carcass and cover with 1 quart of cold water.

  2. Simmer for 2 hours, adding boiling water to maintain the original quantity.

  3. Strain the broth and return it to the kettle.

Cook the vegetables and rice

  1. Add the chopped onion, grated potatoes, grated turnip, and rice.

  2. Boil until the rice is very soft.

  3. Strain again and return to the kettle.

Finish and serve

  1. Add 1 pint of milk, 1 teaspoon of cornstarch rubbed smooth in 1 tablespoon of butter, and season with salt and pepper.

  2. Serve hot.

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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Potato + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together851 recipes

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

  5. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken or turkey carcass
Releases flavour and body into the broth as it simmers.
Potatoes
Break down as they cook, adding body and thickening the soup.
Rice
Softens fully and adds starch, giving the soup a thicker texture.
Milk
Adds richness and creaminess, making the soup smooth and mellow.
Cornstarch
Thickens the milk-enriched soup so it turns silky rather than thin.

The step that matters

Adding the cornstarch and butter mixture. Cornstarch clumps if dropped in dry, so rubbing it smooth into butter first helps it disperse evenly. Once stirred into the hot liquid, it thickens as its starch granules swell with heat.

Swap the turnip

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Turnipthe original

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