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Rice Soup

A simple soup made with rice, water, onion, celery, cloves, cream, butter, flour, pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Rice Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a pot, combine rice and water; boil slowly for 1 hour.

  2. Add onion, celery, and cloves; continue boiling for another hour.

  3. Stir in cream, butter, and flour mixture; season with pepper and salt.

  4. Bring to a boil 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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Celery + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  4. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Rice + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,169 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Breaks down slowly during long simmering, thickening the soup and giving it body.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture to the finished soup.
Flour
Thickens the liquid as it heats, helping the soup become smoother and more cohesive.
Butter
Adds fat for mouthfeel and a rounded, savory flavor.

The step that matters

Stir in cream and flour mixture. Flour needs to be fully blended into the liquid before heating, or it forms lumps. Cream can curdle or separate if it boils hard, so it should be heated gently once added.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, onion, celery, cream, butter, flour, 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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