Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Rice Soup a LA Reine
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the sorrel
Prepare your rice soup as usual.
Pick and wash two pecks of young sorrel, then squeeze it dry.
Stew the sorrel in ¼ pound of butter over low heat until done.
Drain the sorrel for two minutes on a fine sieve.
Make the soup base
Return the sorrel to a stewpan with a small bit of butter over low heat.
When the butter melts, add ½ pint of consomme and reduce.
Add another ½ pint of consomme, then 7-8 tablespoons of plain sauce.
Rub the mixture through a tammy, adding 1 quart of consomme while passing it.
Finish and serve
Let it boil gently for two hours before serving.
Mix 6 eggs and ½ pint of cream, adding this mixture just before serving.
If the soup is not strong enough, boil down some beef stock and mix it in.
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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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sauce + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,787 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Rice + beeftop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,265 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
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Rice + sorreltop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together63 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together15,338 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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
- Forms the body of the soup, giving it substance and a thicker texture.
- Sorrel
- Adds a sharp, lemony acidity that brightens the rich base.
- Butter
- Adds fat and a rounded, silky mouthfeel to the sorrel and base.
- Eggs
- Thicken and enrich the soup gently as they set with the cream.
- Cream
- Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture to the finished soup.
- Beef stock
- Boiled down and stirred in, it deepens the savory flavor when the soup needs more strength.
The step that matters
Adding the egg and cream mixture. Add the egg and cream mixture just before serving and keep the soup below a boil. Eggs thicken gently with heat; if they get too hot after mixing, they scramble and the soup turns grainy.
Swap the sorrel
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, butter, sauce, egg, cream, beef):
- Nutmegfits better
- Capersfits about as well
- Tarragonfits about as well
- Sorrelthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against rice, butter, sauce, egg, cream, beef. 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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