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Rice Soup, with Milk

A simple soup made by cooking rice in water and milk, seasoned with salt and a pinch of sugar.

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, with Milk

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rice

  1. Wash the rice in cold water and drain it.

  2. Put the rice in a saucepan with 2 quarts of cold water and bring to a boil.

  3. Once boiling, immerse the saucepan in cold water.

Make the soup

  1. In another saucepan, boil 2 quarts of milk.

  2. Add the rice to the boiling milk, stirring until it boils again.

  3. Season with salt and a pinch of sugar.

  4. Let it boil slowly on the side of the fire until the rice is cooked.

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. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  3. Rice + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,744 recipes

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

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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
Starch that swells and softens as it cooks, thickening the soup and giving it body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base and adds richness, creaminess and mild sweetness as it simmers.

The step that matters

Adding the rice to the boiling milk. Milk scorches and can boil over easily, and rice starch settles on the bottom of the pan. Stirring while the milk returns to a boil keeps the rice from sticking and burning.

“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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