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Soup

Cream Soup

A creamy soup made from rice, water, salt, raw peanut cream, optional grated onion, topped with a poached egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Cream Soup

Why it works: Rice and peanut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 670 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Cream Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rice

  1. Wash the rice thoroughly, removing any dark or colored grains.

  2. Combine the rice and water in a saucepan.

Cook and strain

  1. Boil slowly for one hour.

  2. Rub the mixture through a sieve twice to create a smooth consistency.

  3. Return the soup to the stove.

Season and serve

  1. Season with salt, raw peanut cream, and grated onion if desired.

  2. Serve immediately.

  3. Add one poached egg to each soup plate.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + peanuttop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together670 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  2. Peanut + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,043 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Cream + oniontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,827 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Peanut + creamtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together490 recipes

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

Cream and onion barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,827 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Forms the body of the soup as it breaks down into a thick base.
Raw peanut cream
Adds richness and a nutty flavour to the soup.
Poached eggs
Add soft, rich protein texture to each serving.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, peanut, cream, egg):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, peanut, cream, egg. 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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