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Chicken Soup

A broth-based soup with chicken bones, vegetables, herbs, and a creamy egg mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Chicken Soup

Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Chicken Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Simmer chicken broth, chicken bones, onion, carrot, parsley, celery, sweet herbs, peppercorns, and salt for 1 hour.

  2. Strain into a double boiler, add milk and cream, and scald.

Thicken and enrich

  1. Stir in tapioca and cook until transparent, stirring occasionally.

  2. Beat egg yolks with ¼ cup cream and stir into the soup.

Prepare and serve the egg whites

  1. Beat egg whites with a few grains of salt until dry.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of egg whites into hot water, dip water over the egg, and remove with a skimmer.

  3. Serve one portion of egg white in each cup of soup.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Tapioca
Thickens the soup as it cooks until the starch turns transparent.
Egg yolks
Enrich the soup and add richness and body when stirred in.
Egg whites
Whipped and poached, they form light, soft pieces that float in the soup.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture to the soup.
Milk
Adds body and mild sweetness, softening the broth's flavor.

The step that matters

Stir in the egg yolks gently. Adding beaten yolks to very hot soup can scramble them into specks. Mixing them with cream first and stirring steadily helps them blend smoothly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, carrot, parsley, celery, milk, cream, egg):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, carrot, parsley, celery, milk, cream, 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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