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Rice Soup

A simple soup made by baking rice, then simmering with milk, butter, salt, and white pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Rice Soup

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the rice

  1. Wash and pick the rice.

  2. Put the rice in an earthen vessel with 1 quart of water and set it in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

  3. When the water is absorbed, transfer the rice to a pan with the milk.

Finish the soup

  1. Set the pan over the fire and stir in the butter.

  2. Season with salt and white pepper, and boil for 10 minutes.

  3. Optionally, use a little cream instead of butter.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Rice + white peppertop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together439 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Butter + white peppertop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Its starch absorbs liquid and swells, giving the soup body and a thick, soft texture.
Milk
Adds liquid richness and creaminess, so the soup feels smooth rather than watery.
Butter
Adds fat that coats the palate and gives the soup a rounder, silkier mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Let the rice fully absorb the water in the oven. Rice must soak up its water before the milk goes in. If water remains, it dilutes the milk and the starch won't thicken the soup properly, leaving it thin.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk, butter. 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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