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Soup

Potage a LA Reine

A creamy soup made from chicken, rice, and milk, seasoned with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,769 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓

Potage a LA Reine

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine cold chicken and rice in a pot.

  2. Boil together until very tender.

  3. Rub the mixture through a sieve.

  4. Add boiling milk to achieve a cream-like consistency.

  5. Season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

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. Chicken + ricetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,769 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Rice + nutmegtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,779 recipes

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

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

Chicken
Provides the main body and savory flavor of the soup once cooked and puréed.
Rice
Softens into starch when boiled, thickening the soup and giving it a smooth body after sieving.
Milk
Added at the end to loosen the purée into a creamy texture and add richness.

The step that matters

Rubbing through the sieve. Pushing the cooked mixture through a sieve breaks down fibers and starch so the soup becomes smooth. Incomplete cooking leaves the rice and chicken grainy, so boil until very tender first.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, rice, milk, 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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