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Turkish Soup

A creamy rice soup with egg yolks, cream, salt, and pepper, served hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Turkish Soup

Why it works: Rice and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,379 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Turkish Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup base

  1. Boil the rice in the stock for 20 minutes.

  2. Pass the mixture through a wire sieve, using a wooden spoon to push the rice through.

  3. Return the mixture to the saucepan and stir to break up any lumps.

Finish and serve

  1. In a bowl, beat together the egg yolks, cream, pepper, and salt.

  2. Add the egg mixture to the stock and rice, stirring over low heat for 2 minutes without boiling.

  3. Serve the soup very hot.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

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

  2. Rice + creamtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  3. Cream + peppertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Rice + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,350 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Cream and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

White rice
Breaks down during simmering and sieving to thicken the soup body.
Egg yolks
Thicken the soup gently and give it a rich, silky texture when heated.
Cream
Adds richness and smooths the texture, softening the egg yolks' effect.
White stock
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavour and cooks the rice.

The step that matters

Add the egg mixture over low heat without boiling. Egg yolks thicken at gentle heat but curdle and turn grainy if the soup boils. Keeping the heat low and stirring constantly keeps the texture smooth.

“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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