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Cream of Rice, Langtry Style

A creamy rice soup with chicken, vegetables, and a butter‑egg yolk paste, garnished with asparagus tops or pearl barley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and carrot 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 ↓

Cream of Rice, Langtry Style

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rice

  1. Wash the rice and put it in a saucepan with cold water. Boil for 2 minutes, stirring occasionally.

  2. Immerse the rice in cold water and drain it dry.

Make the soup base

  1. Return the rice to a saucepan with chicken broth. Season with salt, nutmeg, and pepper.

  2. Add the parsley, leeks, carrot, onion, and cloves. Add the whole chicken.

  3. Cover and cook on low heat until the chicken is done.

  4. Remove the chicken, parsley, carrot, and onion. Add cream sauce to the rice.

  5. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve and dilute with chicken broth to desired consistency.

  6. Keep the soup warm in a hot water bath until ready to serve.

Finish and serve

  1. Pound the breast of the chicken in a mortar into a fine paste. Mix with butter and egg yolks, then sieve.

  2. When ready to serve, combine this mixture with cream in a saucepan. Slowly add the soup while stirring briskly.

  3. Do not let it boil to avoid curdling. Serve garnished with asparagus tops or pearl barley.

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.

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. Parsley + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Leek + carrottop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,310 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  5. Leek + oniontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,326 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Thickens the soup as it breaks down, giving it a smooth, body-rich texture.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the soup, helping it become smooth and velvety.
Cream
Adds richness and softens flavor, giving a smooth, luxurious texture.
Chicken broth
Provides the main savory liquid base that carries the soup's flavor.

The step that matters

Adding the soup to the cream and egg mixture. Egg yolks thicken when heated, but if the mixture gets too hot or boils, they scramble and curdle. Adding the hot soup slowly while stirring briskly tempers the yolks gently, and the soup must never boil afterward.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, chicken, pepper, parsley, leek, carrot, onion):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, chicken, pepper, parsley, leek, carrot, onion. 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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