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Rice Soup

A soup made with rice, egg yolks, cream, stock, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,379 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Rice Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the rice

  1. Boil the rice in the stock until tender.

  2. Drain the rice in a sieve.

  3. Add the drained rice to the boiling stock.

  4. Simmer for a few minutes.

Finish with the egg and cream

  1. Beat the egg yolks.

  2. Mix the beaten yolks with the boiled cream.

  3. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve.

  4. Remove the soup from heat.

  5. Add the egg and cream mixture.

  6. Stir frequently.

  7. Gradually heat the soup while stirring, but do not let it boil.

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. Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Rice + macetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together932 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Cream + macetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,009 recipes
  5. Rice + creamtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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
Thickens the soup and gives it body as it cooks until tender.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the soup, adding richness and a smooth, creamy texture.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy mouthfeel to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Gradually heat the soup without boiling. Egg yolks thicken by gentle heat. If the soup boils after the yolks are added, they can scramble and curdle, leaving the texture grainy instead of smooth.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, egg, cream, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, egg, cream, pepper. 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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