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Cream of Rice Soup

A creamy soup made with rice, milk, butter, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cream of Rice Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the rice base

  1. Cook the rice, onion, and green pepper in cold water until the rice is tender.

  2. Press the mixture through a sieve.

Make the cream base

  1. Melt the butter in a pot, then add the flour, milk or cream, and seasonings; boil for five minutes.

Combine and serve

  1. Combine the rice mixture with the milk mixture.

  2. Add the chopped parsley and serve.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Cooks down and is pressed through a sieve, thickening the soup and giving it body.
Milk or cream
Forms the creamy liquid base that gives the soup its rich, smooth texture.
Butter
Melts with the flour to start the roux and adds richness and flavour.
Flour
Combined with melted butter to form a roux that thickens the milk or cream.
Onion
Softens during cooking and adds savoury aromatic flavour to the base.
Green pepper
Softens during cooking and adds a mild, fresh vegetable flavour to the soup.

The step that matters

Boil the cream mixture for five minutes. Flour needs to be cooked fully in the hot fat and liquid to thicken properly and lose its raw starchy taste. Stirring keeps it smooth and prevents lumps.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, milk, butter, flour, pepper, nutmeg, parsley):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk, butter, flour, pepper, nutmeg, parsley. 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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