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White Soup

A clear broth soup made with white stock, rice or vermicelli, and optional ham, seasoned with onion, white pepper, nutmeg, wine, lemon, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

White Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. In a block-tin saucepan, combine the white stock and lean ham if using.

  2. Add the onion, white pepper, nutmeg, white wine, and lemon juice or peel.

Thicken and finish

  1. For thickening, wash the rice and boil it in a small amount of stock until tender.

  2. Stir the cooked rice into the soup until it reaches the desired thickness.

  3. If using ground rice, mix it with cream or milk to form a paste, then stir it into the boiling soup until thickened.

  4. If using vermicelli, boil it separately for 6 to 10 minutes, then add to the soup.

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. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Rice + nutmegtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,779 recipes

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

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

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

  4. White wine + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  5. Rice + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Cooked and mashed or added whole, it thickens the soup and gives it body.
Ground rice
Mixed to a paste and stirred into boiling soup, it thickens the liquid smoothly.
Cream or milk
Adds richness and a soft, creamy texture to the finished soup.
White wine
Adds acidity and a light fruity note that brightens the rich stock.
Lemon juice or peel
Adds acidity and citrus aroma that balances the savory stock.

The step that matters

Adding ground rice to boiling soup. Ground rice mixed only with dry powder clumps when dropped in. Mixing it first into a smooth paste with cream or milk lets the starch disperse, so it thickens evenly as the soup boils.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, rice, onion, nutmeg, white wine, lemon, cream):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, rice, onion, nutmeg, white wine, lemon, cream. 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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