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Chicken and Rice Soup, or Potage a LA Reine

A creamy chicken broth soup with rice, milk, salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,769 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓

Chicken and Rice Soup, or Potage a LA Reine

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Add rice to chicken broth and boil until rice can be rubbed through a sieve.

  2. Return the broth and rice to the saucepan.

  3. Add enough hot milk to achieve a creamy consistency.

  4. Season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

  5. Serve hot, as the soup thickens upon standing.

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. Chicken + ricetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,769 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  2. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Rice + nutmegtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,779 recipes

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

  5. Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Breaks down when boiled and rubbed through a sieve, thickening the soup and giving body.
Chicken broth
Forms the liquid base of the soup and carries its savory chicken flavor.
Hot milk
Adds richness and a creamy texture to the thickened soup.

The step that matters

Rubbing the rice through a sieve. The rice must be boiled until soft enough to pass through a sieve. Starch released from the cooked rice thickens the broth, so undercooked rice leaves the soup grainy and thin.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, rice, milk, 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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