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Cheap Rice Soup

A simple broth of water, onions, herbs, celery, carrots, and rice, finished with butter, flour, pepper, and optional egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Cheap Rice Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Bring 1 gallon of water to a boil in a large pot.

  2. Add 1 tablespoon of coarse sea salt, sliced onions, sweet herbs, celery, and carrots.

  3. Boil gently for 1.5 to 2 hours, then strain the liquid.

Add the rice and finish

  1. Let the broth cool, then for each quart, add 3-4 ounces of rice.

  2. Heat the soup slowly, stirring occasionally, until the rice is tender and the soup thickens.

  3. Season with pepper and stir in 1-2 ounces of butter mixed with 1 teaspoon of flour before serving.

  4. Alternatively, mix in 2-3 egg yolks with a little milk before serving.

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. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Carrot + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,477 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Swells and softens as it cooks, thickening the soup and giving it body.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Flour
Mixed with butter, it helps thicken the soup slightly as it heats.
Egg yolks
Optional; they enrich the soup and add thickness when stirred in gently.
Onions
Release sweetness and aroma into the broth during the long gentle boil.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks. If egg yolks are added to very hot soup or boiled after mixing, they can scramble and curdle. Stir in a little milk first and keep the soup below a simmer so they thicken it smoothly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (celery, carrot, rice, butter, flour, pepper, egg):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, carrot, rice, butter, flour, pepper, egg. 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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