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Cream of Rice, Rachel Style

A creamy rice soup made with chicken broth, vegetables, and a butter-cream-egg yolk mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Cream of Rice, Rachel Style

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rice

  1. Wash the rice and put it in a saucepan with cold water.

  2. Boil for 2 minutes, stirring occasionally.

  3. Immerse the rice in cold water and drain it well.

  4. Return the rice to a saucepan with chicken broth.

Make the cream of rice

  1. Season with salt, nutmeg, and red pepper.

  2. Add parsley, leeks, carrot, onion, and cloves.

  3. Cover and cook on low heat until thoroughly cooked.

  4. Remove the parsley, carrot, and onion.

  5. Rub the rice through a fine sieve.

  6. Dilute the puree with chicken broth and cream sauce.

  7. Heat and stir until it boils, then simmer for 20 minutes.

  8. Skim and strain the mixture into another saucepan.

Finish and serve

  1. Keep warm in a hot water bath.

  2. Before serving, add butter and cream mixed with egg yolks.

  3. Stir until the butter melts and serve with green asparagus tops.

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. Parsley + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Leek + carrottop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,310 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  5. Leek + oniontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,326 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Breaks down into a smooth puree that thickens the soup.
Chicken broth
Adds liquid and savory flavor as the rice softens and thins into a cream.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel when stirred in at the end.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the cream when mixed with cream and added to the hot soup.
Cream
Adds richness and smoothness, softening the flavor and texture.

The step that matters

Adding the butter and egg yolk mixture. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if the soup is too hot when they are added. Keep the mixture warm but below a boil, and stir gently until the butter melts and the cream thickens smoothly.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, chicken, pepper, parsley, leek, carrot, onion):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, chicken, pepper, parsley, leek, carrot, onion. 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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