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Cream of Rice Soup

A creamy soup made from rice, stock, onions, celery, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cream of Rice Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the rice carefully.

Simmer and strain

  1. Add the rice to the cold stock with the bay leaf, onions, and celery.

  2. Simmer slowly for two hours and then press through a sieve.

Finish and serve

  1. Return the mixture to the soup kettle and add cream, butter, salt, and pepper.

  2. Bring to a boil and serve with croutons.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  4. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Rice + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Starch that thickens the stock as it simmers and breaks down into the soup body.
Onions
Sweetness and savory depth as they soften and release flavor into the stock.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture to the finished soup.
Butter
Adds fat for a rounder mouthfeel and a rich, buttery aroma.

The step that matters

Pressing the simmered mixture through a sieve. Pressing the soft rice, onions, and celery through a sieve breaks them into fine particles that give the soup its smooth body. Skipping or rushing this leaves a grainy, uneven texture.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, celery, cream, 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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