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Rice Soup

A simple broth made with water, marrow bone, onions, carrot, rice, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley 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 ↓

Rice Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Bring 4 quarts of water to a boil with the marrow bone and minced onions.

  2. Add the grated carrot and cook for 2 hours.

  3. Stir in the rice and occasionally stir the mixture.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the chopped parsley leaves before serving.

  2. Remove the marrow bone before dishing out.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,477 recipes

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

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  5. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Marrow bone
Releases fat and savory flavor into the broth during the long simmer.
Onions
Build sweetness and aroma as they soften into the broth.
Carrot
Adds natural sweetness and body to the soup.
Rice
Thickens the soup as its starch releases during cooking.

The step that matters

Stir in the rice and keep the mixture moving. Rice starch settles and sticks to the bottom of the pot if left still, which can scorch the base and give an uneven texture. Occasional stirring keeps the grains suspended and the starch evenly distributed.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, rice, parsley. 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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