Skip to main content
Main

Rice Soup, with Milk

A creamy rice soup made with milk, water, and optional cream, eggs, butter, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Rice Soup, with Milk

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rice

  1. Wash the rice in cold water, then 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.

Enrich

  1. For a richer soup, mix 1 cup of cream with 2 egg yolks, 1 tablespoon of butter, and finely chopped parsley.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Rice + parsleytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,762 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
Thickens the soup as its starch softens and releases into the milk during simmering.
Milk
Forms the creamy liquid base and adds richness and sweetness as it simmers.
Egg yolks
Add richness and body, thickening the soup when gently heated.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, giving a smoother, silkier texture.
Butter
Adds fat and rich flavor to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolk mixture. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat; if the soup boils after they are added, they can scramble and curdle. Stir them in off the heat or over very low heat.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, milk, sugar, cream, egg, butter):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Turmericfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk, sugar, cream, egg, butter. 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.

You might also like

Rice FrittersRice Fritters84 recipesSteamed RiceSteamed Rice48 recipesRice Griddle CakesRice Griddle Cakes28 recipesRice and Cheese CasseroleRice and Cheese Casserole23 recipes