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Rice Soup

A simple soup made with rice, water, tomato juice, oils, salt, and ketchup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and olive are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,539 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Rice Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the rice in the water for 1 hour.

  2. Add the juice of the boiled tomatoes, olive oil, peanut oil, and salt.

  3. Boil for a few minutes.

  4. Flavour with tomato ketchup.

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. Tomato + olivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,539 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Rice + olivetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,994 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

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

  4. Rice + peanut oiltop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together199 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  5. Olive + peanut oiltop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together172 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Releases starch during long boiling, which thickens the broth and gives it body.
Tomato juice
Adds acidity and fresh tomato flavour to the broth.
Olive oil
Adds fat that carries flavour and rounds out the broth.
Peanut oil
Adds fat for a smoother, richer mouthfeel.
Tomato ketchup
Adds sweetness and tang that deepens the tomato flavour.

The step that matters

Boil the rice for 1 hour. A long simmer lets the rice break down and release starch, which thickens the broth. If it is stopped early, the grains stay firm and the soup stays thin and watery.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, olive, peanut oil, ketchup):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatothe original
  3. Welsh onionfits less well
  4. Cucumberfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, olive, peanut oil, ketchup. 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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