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Chicken Soup

A hearty chicken soup with ham, hard‑boiled eggs, bread crumbs, milk, and flour, finished with parsley.

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

Why it works: Ham and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,536 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Chicken Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chicken and broth

  1. Cut the chickens into pieces as for fricassee.

  2. Put the chicken pieces and ham into a pot with enough water to cover them.

  3. Stew for 1 hour if the chickens are tender, or until easily cut if tough.

  4. Remove the chicken breasts.

  5. Add the remaining boiling hot water.

  6. Keep the soup stewing slowly.

  7. Boil the soup for 2.5 hours.

  8. Strain out the meat and bones.

Make the meatballs

  1. Chop the selected white meat.

  2. Rub the yolks of the hard-boiled eggs smooth in a bowl, moistening with a few spoonfuls of soup.

  3. Mix the egg yolks with bread crumbs and chopped meat, forming small balls.

Finish and serve

  1. Season with salt, white pepper, and chopped parsley.

  2. Drop in the prepared meatballs.

  3. Boil for 10 minutes to incorporate.

  4. Gradually add the thickened milk and flour.

  5. Boil once.

  6. Serve.

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. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

  2. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Chicken + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,389 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main meat and flavour that the broth is built on.
Hard-boiled eggs
Yolks bind the meatball mixture and add richness to the soup.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help the meatballs hold their shape.
Milk
Adds creaminess and body to the finished soup.
Flour
Thickens the milk and soup as it is added.

The step that matters

Gradually add the thickened milk and flour. Adding the milk and flour slowly, while the soup is hot and moving, helps prevent lumps and a grainy texture as the starch disperses and the soup thickens.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, ham, egg, bread, parsley, milk, flour):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, ham, egg, bread, parsley, milk, flour. 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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