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Chicken Soup

A clear chicken soup with rice, herbs, onions, celery, parsley, and optional allspice, noodles, or dumplings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Chicken Soup

Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Chicken Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken

  1. Wash the chicken and place it in a pot.

  2. Cover with water and add a little salt.

  3. Pick and wash the rice.

Make the soup

  1. Add the rice to the pot along with the sweet herbs, onions, and celery once the water begins to boil.

  2. When the chicken is tender, add the minced parsley.

  3. Let it boil for a few more minutes.

  4. Season with pepper and salt to taste.

  5. If desired, add 1 teaspoon of whole allspice to the soup.

  6. Pearl barley can be used instead of rice.

Add dumplings or noodles and serve

  1. For noodles, refer to recipe No. 11.

  2. For dumplings, mix 1 teaspoon of butter, 2 teaspoons of flour, and enough water to form a soft dough.

  3. Drop teaspoonfuls into the boiling soup and let them cook for a few minutes.

  4. Serve the chicken with melted butter.

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. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + allspicetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,289 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the meat and rich flavour of the broth as it simmers in water.
Rice
Thickens the broth slightly and adds body as its starch releases during simmering.
Onions
Build savoury, sweet aromatic depth in the broth as they soften.
Parsley
Adds fresh, green aroma added near the end so its flavour stays bright.

The step that matters

Adding the rice with the herbs once the water boils. Rice added too early can overcook and turn mushy, while added too late it stays hard. Timing it to the boil lets the starch release gently and the broth thicken without becoming cloudy or pasty.

Swap the allspice

The recipe marks allspice as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, rice, onion, celery, parsley, pepper, butter):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, rice, onion, celery, parsley, pepper, butter. 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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