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
Cook the fowl
Wash the fowl parts and boil them in water for 1 hour.
Stir in the thickening, pepper, salt, and parsley to season.
Make the dumplings and finish the soup
Make dumplings by mixing flour and butter, then roll into small balls the size of a nutmeg.
Add the 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.
Prepare the fowl and serve
Remove the fowl from the pot.
Take the flesh off the bones and cut into bite-sized pieces.
Mince the livers and gizzards.
Return all the fowl parts to 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 main meat and flavor, with bones that enrich the broth as it simmers.
- All-purpose flour
- Forms the dough structure of the dumplings, which hold their shape while boiling.
- Butter
- Adds fat to the dumpling dough, making it tender and rich.
- Egg yolks
- Add richness and help thicken the broth as they cook.
The step that matters
Stirring in the egg yolks. Egg yolks are proteins that set when heated, so they can curdle or turn grainy if the soup is boiling hard. Stirring them in gently and keeping the heat controlled gives a smooth, lightly thickened broth.
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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