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Oream of Bice with Stock

A thickened rice soup made with stock, milk, and a roux of fat and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Oream of Bice with Stock

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the rice

  1. Heat the stock and add the rice and vegetables.

  2. Cook for 30 minutes, or until the rice and celery are tender.

  3. Strain the mixture.

Make the sauce

  1. Heat the fat, add the flour and seasoning, and cook for a few minutes.

  2. Slowly add the milk, allowing it to thicken before adding more.

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. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  2. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  4. Celery + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,169 recipes

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

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 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
Absorbs the stock and softens, becoming the body of the dish.
Flour
Thickens the fat and milk into a smooth sauce when cooked.
Milk
Forms the creamy base of the sauce, thickened by the flour roux.
Fat from stock
Carries the flour and cooks it into a roux that thickens the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the milk slowly. Adding milk gradually to the hot flour and fat lets the roux blend in smoothly. Adding it too fast can trap lumps of flour, and the sauce may not thicken evenly.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Fennelfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, rice, milk, onion, parsley, flour. 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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