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Rice Tomato

A tomato soup cooked with rice, butter, salt, pepper, and soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and rice 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 ↓

Rice Tomato

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the base

  1. Boil the tomatoes and water together with the rice until the rice is cooked.

  2. Strain the mixture through a sieve.

Season and serve

  1. Combine equal parts of the strained tomato and soup stock.

  2. Add a pinch of soda, butter, salt, and pepper to taste.

  3. Boil for ten minutes 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. Tomato + ricetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,065 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

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

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the main body, bright acidity, and tomato flavor of the soup.
Rice
Cooks down to thicken the soup and add a soft, starchy body.
Butter
Adds fat for richer flavor and a smoother, rounder mouthfeel.
Soda
Baking soda neutralizes some of the tomato's acidity, mellowing the flavor.

The step that matters

Adding the pinch of soda. Baking soda neutralizes tomato acid, so a small pinch mellows sharpness. Too much leaves a soapy, bitter, or metallic taste that cannot be removed, so add it sparingly and taste before adding more.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, butter, 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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