Why it works: Meat and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,481 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓
Rice Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Make the broth
Boil the soup bone in 2 quarts of water for several hours.
Cool the broth and skim off all the grease.
Strain the broth through a sieve.
Cook and finish
Add 1 cup of rice to the strained broth and cook until the rice is soft.
If the soup is thin, beat 1 egg with ½ cup of cream and add just before serving.
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.
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Meat + ricetop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,481 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Meat + eggtop 22% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,432 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Rice + creamtop 23% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,399 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).
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Meat + creamtop 24% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,248 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
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Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together42,166 recipes
Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Cream and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Rice
- Softens as it cooks, adding body and thickening the broth.
- Egg
- Thickens the soup slightly when beaten in and heated gently.
- Cream
- Adds richness and a smoother, silkier texture to the finished soup.
- Soup bone
- Releases gelatin and flavor into the water during long simmering, giving the broth body.
The step that matters
Adding the egg and cream. Egg proteins set when heated, so adding the mixture just before serving and keeping the soup below a hard boil helps it thicken smoothly instead of curdling or turning grainy.
“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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