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Soup

Rice and Onion Soup

A simple soup made with butter, onion, celery, rice, parsley, bay leaf, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Rice and Onion Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Start the soup

  1. Fry the onion in the butter or drippings until soft.

  2. Add all ingredients to a kettle.

Finish and serve

  1. Boil until the rice is tender.

  2. Stir in the 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. 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. Celery + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,169 recipes

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

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 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

Butter
Adds fat that softens the onion and carries its flavor into the broth.
Onion
Softens as it cooks, releasing sweetness and aroma into the broth.
Rice
Thickens the broth slightly as its starch releases during simmering.
Bay leaf
Adds a subtle herbal aroma that infuses the broth as it cooks.

The step that matters

Boil until the rice is tender. Rice keeps absorbing liquid and releasing starch while it simmers. Stopping when it is just tender keeps the grains intact and the broth clear, while overcooking makes the rice soft and the soup cloudy and mushy.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, celery, rice, 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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