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White Soup

A light soup made from white stock, rice, optional vermicelli, and ham, seasoned with white pepper, nutmeg, wine, and lemon.

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 stock

  1. Boil the white meats in a block-tin saucepan to make the stock.

  2. Add a small piece of lean ham and an onion for flavor.

  3. Strain the mixture.

Cook the rice and thicken

  1. Wash the rice.

  2. Boil the rice in a small amount of the stock until tender.

  3. Add more stock gradually until the rice is fully cooked and the soup thickens.

  4. Mix ground rice with cream or milk.

  5. Stir the mixture into the boiling soup until thickened.

Finish the soup

  1. Boil the vermicelli for 6 to 10 minutes.

  2. Add the vermicelli to the soup.

  3. Season with white pepper, nutmeg, white wine, and lemon juice or peel.

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
Softens as it cooks and swells, giving the soup body and a thick texture.
Cream or milk
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy mouthfeel to the thickened soup.
White stock
Forms the liquid base of the soup and carries its savory flavor.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the rich stock and cream.
Lemon juice or peel
Adds acidity and citrus aroma that balance the richness of the soup.

The step that matters

Stirring the ground rice and cream into the boiling soup. Adding a starch-and-dairy mixture to boiling liquid can cause lumps or curdling if it is not mixed in smoothly first. Stirring steadily while the soup thickens helps the starch disperse evenly and keeps the cream smooth.

Swap the white pepper

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, rice, onion, nutmeg, white wine, lemon, ham. 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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