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Soup

Beef Rice Soup

A soup of beef, rice, cabbage, and broth, served with bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,265 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Beef Rice Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Cook the beef in a pot until tender.

  2. Add the rice and broth, and simmer until the rice is cooked.

  3. Chop the cabbage and add it to the pot, cooking until tender.

Serve

  1. Serve with bread on the side.

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. Beef + ricetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,265 recipes

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

  2. Rice + cabbagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together361 recipes

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

  3. Beef + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

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

  4. Rice + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,259 recipes

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

  5. Beef + cabbagetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together872 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

Beef
Provides the main protein, which softens and becomes tender as it cooks.
Rice
Absorbs the broth as it simmers, swelling and adding body to the soup.
Broth
Cooks the rice and cabbage and forms the flavorful liquid of the soup.
Cabbage
Softens as it cooks, adding bulk and a mild, sweet vegetable flavor.

The step that matters

Simmer the rice until cooked. Rice keeps absorbing broth as it simmers, so it can turn soft and mushy if cooked too long, while undercooked grains stay firm. Checking it near the end helps keep the texture right.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Tomatofits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

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