Skip to main content
Main

Rice Soup, Brown

A baked brown rice soup with onion, stock, mushroom ketchup, and tomato ketchup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Rice and tomato 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 Soup, Brown

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the rice

  1. Boil the rice as for curry.

  2. Let the rice cool.

  3. Place the rice in a baking tin with a little melted butter.

  4. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until golden brown, turning occasionally.

Prepare the onion

  1. Peel and mince the onion.

  2. Fry the onion in more butter until nearly tender.

  3. Drain the onion.

Make the soup

  1. Add the onion to a pan with the rice, stock, mushroom ketchup, and tomato ketchup.

  2. Boil until the onion is soft.

  3. Serve 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.

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 + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,065 recipes

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

  2. Mushroom + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,719 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  5. Rice + mushroomtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,515 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Patna rice
Browned rice grains add a toasted, nutty flavour and body to the soup.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the rice and onion brown in the pan.
Onion
Softens into the soup, adding sweetness and savoury depth as it cooks.
Stock
Forms the liquid base of the soup and carries the other flavours.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds deep, savoury umami notes to the soup.
Tomato ketchup
Contributes sweetness and gentle acidity to the soup.

The step that matters

Baking the rice until golden brown. Rice that is under-browned stays pale and bland, while over-browned rice turns bitter. Turning it occasionally helps the grains colour evenly and develop toasted flavour through the Maillard reaction.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, butter, mushroom, ketchup, tomato. 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesRice FrittersRice Fritters84 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipes