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Cream of Rice

A creamy soup made with rice, onion, celery, milk, butter, egg yolk, cream, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cream of Rice

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the soup

  1. Wash the rice thoroughly.

  2. In a pot, combine the rice, boiling water, onion, and celery. Cook slowly for 1 hour.

  3. Stir in the milk and bring to a boil.

  4. Add the butter and press the mixture through a puree sieve.

  5. Return the soup to the heat.

Finish and serve

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg yolk with the cream and parsley.

  2. Remove the soup from the heat and stir in the egg and cream mixture.

  3. Pour into a tureen 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. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  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
Thickens the soup as its starch softens and dissolves during long, slow cooking.
Milk
Adds body and creaminess, giving the soup a smooth, rich texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Egg yolk
Enriches and thickens the soup, adding richness and body when stirred in off the heat.

The step that matters

Stir the egg and cream mixture in off the heat. Egg yolk thickens by gentle heat and can curdle or scramble if it boils, so the soup must be removed from the heat before it is added.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, celery, milk, butter, egg, cream, parsley. 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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