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Rice Soup

A simple soup made with rice, water, salt, milk, and optional celery.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,374 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Rice Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the rice

  1. Cook the rice in hot water over low heat for 1.5 hours.

Finish the soup

  1. Add salt and milk to the soup.

  2. Reheat the soup.

  3. Simmer celery in the soup briefly.

  4. Remove celery before serving.

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

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

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

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

  3. Milk + celerytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,491 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Softens as it cooks and releases starch that thickens the soup.
Milk
Adds creaminess and a mild sweetness to the broth.

The step that matters

Cook the rice slowly over low heat. Rice needs a long, gentle simmer to soften fully and release its starch. Starch is what gives the soup body, so cutting the time leaves grains firm and the broth thin.

Swap the celery

The recipe marks celery as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, milk):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk. 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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