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Tomato and Rice Soup

A tomato soup with rice, onions, bacon or ham, seasoned with salt and pepper, served with sour cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,065 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Tomato and Rice Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Boil the rice in water until very soft.

  2. In a pot, combine the beef stock, soft rice, tomatoes, sliced onion, and bacon or ham.

  3. Boil together for a few minutes, then season with salt and pepper.

Finish and serve

  1. Pour a little soup over a cup of thick sour cream and mix thoroughly.

  2. Add the rest of the soup.

  3. Serve the soup in a tureen and the cream separately.

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 + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,065 recipes

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

  2. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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 until very soft, thickening the soup and giving it body.
Beef stock
Forms the savory liquid base of the soup.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and tomato flavor to the broth.
Bacon or ham
Adds smoky, salty meat flavor to the stock as it simmers.
Thick sour cream
Adds richness and a tangy, cooling fat that softens the soup's acidity.

The step that matters

Pour a little soup over the sour cream and mix thoroughly. Sour cream can curdle if it meets hot liquid all at once. Tempering it with a small amount of hot soup first gradually raises its temperature, keeping it smooth when the rest is added.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, beef, onion, ham, pepper, cream):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Leekfits about as well
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, beef, onion, ham, pepper, cream. 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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