Skip to main content
Main

Ckeam of Lettuce

A creamy lettuce soup made with stock, rice, butter, onion, cream, egg yolk, nutmeg, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Nutmeg and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Ckeam of Lettuce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cook the onion in butter for 5 minutes.

  2. Add the lettuce, rice, and stock; cook until the rice is soft.

  3. Stir in the cream, beaten egg yolk, nutmeg, salt, and pepper.

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. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  2. Lettuce + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,562 recipes

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Lettuce + ricetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together520 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Lettuce + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together184 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Lettuce
Forms the bulk of the soup and gives it its green, vegetable body.
Rice
Softens during cooking and thickens the soup as its starch releases.
Egg yolk
Enriches the soup and thickens it into a creamy texture when gently heated.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, giving the soup a smooth, velvety mouthfeel.
Butter
Carries the flavor of the onion and adds richness at the start of cooking.

The step that matters

Stir in the egg yolk without curdling. Egg yolk thickens through gentle heat. If the soup is kept at a hard boil after the yolk goes in, the egg can scramble and leave the soup grainy, so add it off the boil or over low heat.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, lettuce, egg, rice, nutmeg, cream, pepper):

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, lettuce, egg, rice, nutmeg, cream, pepper. 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.

You might also like

Rice FrittersRice Fritters84 recipesSteamed RiceSteamed Rice48 recipesRice Griddle CakesRice Griddle Cakes28 recipesRice and Cheese CasseroleRice and Cheese Casserole23 recipes