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Rice Soup

A simple soup made with rice, cheese, tomato juice, butter, pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,065 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Rice Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the rice in 5 cups of water with the butter, pepper, and salt until tender.

  2. Once soft, add the tomato juice and cheese.

  3. Stir until the soup boils and the cheese has dissolved.

  4. If too much water has evaporated, add a little more.

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 + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,065 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  4. Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

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

  5. Cheese + tomatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,896 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Provides the body of the soup as its starch softens and thickens the liquid.
Grated cheese
Melts into the broth, adding richness, savoury flavour and a creamy texture.
Tomato juice
Adds acidity, colour and a tangy flavour to the broth.
Butter
Adds fat, which carries flavour and gives the soup a smoother mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Melting the cheese. Cheese is best added to a gently boiling liquid and stirred until it melts. Overheating or adding it without stirring can make it grainy, stringy or clump instead of blending smoothly into the broth.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Tomatothe original
  4. Asparagusfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, cheese, butter, pepper. 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.

More rice soup recipes

Tomato 17White 16Chicken 10Italian 7Mutton 6Curry 5 See all 159 →

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