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Rice Soup

A creamy soup made with rice, milk, butter, onion, celery, and bay leaf, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Rice Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Combine the milk and rice in a double boiler.

  2. Cook slowly for 30 minutes, keeping the boiler covered.

Cook the vegetables

  1. Slice the onion.

  2. Cook the onion with the butter in a frying pan until tender but not brown.

  3. Add the celery to the onion.

  4. Transfer the mixture to the double boiler.

  5. Add the bay leaf.

  6. Cover and let it sit on the back of the stove for 15 minutes.

Finish the soup

  1. Press the mixture through a puree sieve.

  2. Return it to the boiler.

  3. Season with salt and pepper.

  4. If the soup is too thick, add more milk to achieve the desired consistency.

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. 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
Starch that thickens the milk as it cooks and gives the soup its body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base and, with the rice, creates the soup's creamy texture.
Butter
Fat that softens the onion and carries flavor into the soup.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and savory depth as it softens in butter.
Celery
Contributes a mild, herbal aroma to the soup base.

The step that matters

Cooking the onion until tender but not brown. Browning changes the onion's flavor from mild and sweet to toasted and sharp, which would alter the soup's delicate, creamy taste. Gentle cooking softens the cell structure so the onion purees smoothly.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk, butter, celery, 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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