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Tomato and Rice Soup

A hearty soup made with beef, tomatoes, and rice simmered for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,065 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Tomato and Rice Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Combine the beef, soup bone, cold water, salt, and sliced onion in a large pot.

  2. Cook for 5.5 to 6 hours.

  3. Strain the soup through a colander.

  4. Return the meat to the pot, discarding bones, skin, and gristle.

Finish the soup

  1. Prepare the tomatoes and rice as needed.

  2. Add the tomatoes to the soup after straining.

  3. Add the rice 30 minutes before serving.

  4. Stir frequently to ensure the tomatoes dissolve and the rice does not stick to the bottom.

  5. Season lightly with pepper before serving.

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. Rice + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,065 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  4. Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

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

  5. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh lean beef
Provides the main meat flavor and becomes tender during the long simmer.
Soup bone
Adds body and rich savoury flavour to the broth as it simmers.
Tomatoes
Add acidity, sweetness and body as they break down into the soup.
Rice
Thickens the soup slightly and adds starchy body as it cooks.

The step that matters

Adding the rice 30 minutes before serving. Rice keeps absorbing liquid and releasing starch, so adding it too early can make the soup mushy and cloudy. Stirring frequently helps keep it from sticking and scorching on the bottom of the pot.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, rice, tomato, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, rice, tomato, 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.

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