Why it works: Rice and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,379 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Rice Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Make the soup
Prepare 2 quarts of veal or chicken soup and let it simmer, covered, with ½ cup of rice until the grains are nearly dissolved.
Add pepper, ¼ teaspoon of coarse sea salt, a little mace if desired, and ½ pint of cream.
Just before serving, stir in the sifted yolks of 4 hard-boiled eggs.
Serve
Serve with a plate of rice croquettes.
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.
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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Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,379 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together12,257 recipes
Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
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Rice + macetop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together932 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
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Veal + macetop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,761 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
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Mace + creamtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together4,009 recipes
Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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
- Rice
- Breaks down as it simmers, thickening the soup and giving it a soft, body-rich texture.
- Cream
- Adds richness and fat, making the soup smoother and rounder in flavour.
- Hard-boiled egg yolks
- Their fat and emulsifying proteins enrich the soup and give it a creamy, velvety mouthfeel.
The step that matters
Stirring in the egg yolks just before serving. Egg yolk proteins set and can curdle or turn grainy if the soup is kept at a high simmer after they are added. Adding them just before serving, off the heat or at a gentle heat, keeps the texture smooth.
Swap the mace
The recipe marks mace as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, rice, pepper, cream, egg):
- Nutmegfits better
- Turmericfits better
- Parsleyfits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against veal, rice, pepper, 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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