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Rice Soup, with Almond Milk

A rice soup thickened with almond milk and almond paste.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,456 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Rice Soup, with Almond Milk

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and parboil the rice, then immerse it in cold water and drain.

  2. Peel the sweet and bitter almonds, then pound them into a fine paste in a mortar, adding a little milk to prevent oiliness.

  3. Dilute the almond paste with 1 quart of milk and strain it through a napkin.

Cook and finish

  1. In a saucepan, combine the rice with 3 pints of boiled milk and cook slowly until the rice is done.

  2. Add the almond milk to the soup, season to taste, and warm thoroughly without boiling.

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 + almondtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,456 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Milk + almondtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,800 recipes

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

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 softens in the milk.
Sweet almonds
Provide the main almond flavour and richness in the almond milk.
Bitter almonds
Add a sharper, more aromatic almond note to the almond milk.
Milk
Supplies the liquid that cooks the rice and carries the almond flavour.

The step that matters

Warm the soup without boiling. Once the almond milk is added, boiling can cause the milk to curdle or separate and can make the texture grainy. Gentle heat keeps the soup smooth.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Peanutfits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Sesamefits about as well
  4. Almondthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk. 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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