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White Rice Soup

A soup of boiled rice in milk and veal broth, finished with egg yolks, cream, and veal knuckle stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,374 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

White Rice Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Boil the knuckle of veal in water with mace until tender.

  2. Strain the liquid.

  3. Skim off the fat.

  4. Alternatively, use boiled calf's feet or a fowl prepared in the same way.

Cook the rice

  1. Pick and wash the rice.

  2. Boil the rice in the milk until nearly absorbed.

  3. Add the veal broth.

  4. Season with salt.

  5. Let the rice boil until tender.

  6. Add the strained liquid to the soup.

Finish and serve

  1. Five minutes before serving, add a mixture of egg yolks and cream.

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

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

  2. Rice + macetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together932 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Milk + macetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,346 recipes

    Shared aroma: sabinene (woody, terpenic).

  4. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Its starch thickens the soup and gives it a soft, body-filled texture as it cooks.
Milk
Cooking the rice in milk makes it creamy and adds richness and mild sweetness.
Egg yolks
They enrich and thicken the soup, giving it a smooth, velvety body when stirred in.
Cream
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, silkier mouthfeel to the soup.
Veal broth
Provides the main liquid and savory flavor base of the soup.

The step that matters

Five minutes before serving, add a mixture of egg yolks and cream.. Egg yolks thicken when heated but can scramble and curdle if the soup is too hot or boils after they are added. Keep the soup below a boil and stir constantly while adding the mixture.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk, veal, egg, 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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