Name: Rice for Purees or Bisque Soups
Ingredients: 1 cup Rice; 4 cups chicken or veal broth; 1 teaspoon coarse sea salt; 1 tablespoon butter; 1 carrot; 1 onion; 4 whole cloves

Why it works: Carrot and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,873 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Rice for Purees or Bisque Soups

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Wash the rice in cold water and drain it.
Put the rice into a saucepan and pour in the broth.

Cook

Season with salt and add the butter, carrot, and onion with cloves stuck in it.
Cover and cook until the rice is thoroughly done.
Remove the onion and carrot, then pound the rice into a fine paste.

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.

Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,873 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Rice + chickentop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,769 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together21,601 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Rice + carrottop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,477 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,814 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice: Breaks down during long simmering in broth to thicken the soup into a smooth paste.
Broth: Cooks the rice and supplies the liquid that becomes the body of the soup.
Butter: Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished paste.

The step that matters

Cook until the rice is thoroughly done. Rice that is not fully softened will stay grainy when pounded, so the paste will not become fine and smooth. Cooking it fully gives starch time to soften the grains completely.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, chicken, butter, carrot, onion):

Garlicfits better
Celeryfits better
Parsleyfits better
Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, chicken, butter, carrot, onion. 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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Rice for Purees or Bisque Soups