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Simple White Soup

A light soup made from turkey stock, onion, rice, milk, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,374 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Simple White Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Remove the fat from the top of the turkey soup stock and strain it.

Make the soup

  1. Simmer the strained stock with the sliced onion and soaked rice for one hour until the rice is soft.

  2. Stir the soup to prevent scorching.

  3. Strain the soup into a tureen.

  4. Add pepper and salt to taste.

Finish and serve

  1. In a separate bowl, stir the beaten eggs into the hot milk and cook for one minute.

  2. Add the milk and egg mixture to the soup and serve.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Turkey + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together281 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Beaten eggs cooked into the milk thicken the soup and give it a richer body.
Soaked rice
Softens as it simmers, thickening the stock and giving the soup body.
Hot milk
Adds creaminess and mild sweetness, and carries the egg mixture into the soup.

The step that matters

Stirring the eggs into the hot milk. Adding eggs to hot liquid can scramble them. Stirring the eggs into the milk gently and cooking only briefly lets them thicken smoothly rather than curdle.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, rice, pepper, milk, egg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, rice, pepper, milk, egg. 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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