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Cream of Rice, Rachel Style

A creamy soup made from rice, chicken broth, cream, butter, and egg yolks, flavored with parsley, leeks, carrot, onion, nutmeg, and red pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Cream of Rice, Rachel Style

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rice

  1. Wash the rice and place it in a saucepan with 4 quarts of cold water. Boil for 2 minutes, stirring occasionally.

  2. Immerse the rice in cold water and drain it well.

Make the soup base

  1. Return the rice to a saucepan with 3 pints of chicken broth. Season with salt, nutmeg, and red pepper. Add the faggot of parsley, leeks, carrot, and onion.

  2. Cover and cook on low heat until thoroughly cooked. Remove the faggot, carrot, and onion.

  3. Rub the rice through a fine sieve into a bowl.

  4. Dilute the puree with 2 quarts of chicken broth and 1 quart of cream sauce. Heat and stir until boiling, then simmer for 20 minutes.

  5. Skim and strain the mixture through a fine sieve into another saucepan. Keep warm in a hot water bath.

Finish and serve

  1. Before serving, add the butter and cream mixed with the egg yolks. Stir until the butter melts.

  2. Serve garnished with green asparagus tops.

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. Parsley + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Leek + carrottop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,310 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  5. Leek + oniontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,326 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Breaks down into a puree that gives the soup its body and thickness.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel as it melts into the soup.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the soup when gently combined with the cream and butter.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture to the finished soup.
Chicken broth
Provides the main savory liquid base for the soup.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks and cream. Egg yolks thicken by gentle heat and can scramble if the soup is too hot or boiling. Keep the soup warm, not boiling, and stir while adding the mixture so it stays smooth.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, chicken, pepper, parsley, leek, 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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