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Swiss Rice Soup

A creamy soup of rice, onion, mace, parsley, and Swiss cheese, finished with eggs and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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 ↓

Swiss Rice Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Wash the rice thoroughly and place it in a kettle with boiling water.

  2. Add the chopped onion, mace, parsley, and salt.

  3. Boil slowly until the rice is pulpy.

  4. Rub the mixture through a sieve.

  5. Reheat to boiling.

Thicken and enrich

  1. Blend the flour with a little cold milk.

  2. Stir the mixture into the soup until thickened.

  3. Add pepper and more salt if needed.

  4. Simmer for five minutes.

  5. Beat the eggs and mix in the cream.

  6. Remove the kettle from the heat.

  7. Slowly stir in the egg and cream mixture.

  8. Sprinkle in the grated Swiss cheese.

  9. Remove from heat immediately.

  10. Garnish each serving with a pinch of chopped parsley.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Rice + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

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

  5. Rice + parsleytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,762 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Breaks down into pulp when boiled, giving the soup its body and thickness.
Flour
Starch that thickens the soup when stirred in and heated.
Eggs
Thicken the soup gently and add richness when stirred in off the heat.
Heavy cream
Adds fat and richness, giving the finished soup a smooth, velvety texture.
Swiss cheese
Adds savory, nutty flavor and melts into the soup for a creamy finish.

The step that matters

Adding the egg and cream mixture. Eggs can curdle or scramble if they meet hot liquid too quickly. Removing the kettle from the heat and stirring the mixture in slowly lets the eggs thicken the soup smoothly.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

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