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Cream of Rice

A creamy soup made from chicken breast, rice, broth, and milk, seasoned with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,769 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓

Cream of Rice

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Boil the chicken breast and rice in chicken broth until soft.

  2. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve to create a paste.

Finish

  1. Thin the paste with boiling milk until it reaches a thick cream consistency.

  2. Season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg to taste.

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. Chicken + ricetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,769 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  2. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Rice + nutmegtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,779 recipes

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

  5. Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Softens into starch that thickens the broth and gives the cream its body.
Chicken breast
Cooks into the broth, adding savoury flavour and protein to the smooth base.
Milk
Thins the paste into a creamy consistency and adds richness and mild sweetness.

The step that matters

Rubbing the mixture through a fine sieve. Pushing the soft rice and chicken through a fine sieve breaks the solids into small particles, creating a smooth paste. Skipping or rushing this leaves grainy texture in the finished cream.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, rice, milk, pepper. 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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