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Cream of Chicken Soup

A creamy soup made with barley, rice, celery, onion, and chicken stock, thickened with flour and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Cream of Chicken Soup

Why it works: Barley and rice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 568 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Cream of Chicken Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Boil the barley, rice, celery, and onion together until soft.

  2. Run the mixture through a sieve into a saucepan.

Finish the soup

  1. Add the chicken stock to the saucepan.

  2. Mix the flour, butter, salt, and pepper together, then add to the soup.

  3. Cook until thickened and 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. Barley + ricetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together568 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Rice + chickentop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,769 recipes

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

  3. Barley + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together571 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  4. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Rice + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,169 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Barley
Softens during boiling and, once sieved, gives the soup body and a thick, creamy texture.
Rice
Breaks down as it cooks, adding starch that thickens the soup and gives it body.
Flour
Combined with butter and added to the hot soup, its starch thickens the liquid.
Butter
Mixed with the flour, adds richness and fat that carries flavour and smooths the texture.
Chicken stock
Forms the liquid base of the soup, providing moisture and savoury chicken flavour.

The step that matters

Adding the flour and butter mixture. Flour thickens only when its starch is heated in liquid. Adding it as a lump or to a cold soup can leave clumps, so it should be stirred in well and cooked until the soup thickens.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (barley, flour, rice, butter, celery, onion, chicken):

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against barley, flour, rice, butter, celery, onion, chicken. 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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