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Rice Soup

A creamy soup made with rice, stock, milk, onion, celery, herbs, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Rice Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Heat the fat in a pan over medium heat until hot.

  2. Stir in the flour until well mixed but not browned.

  3. Add the stock, rice, chopped onion, chopped celery, and mixed herbs.

  4. Simmer for 2 hours.

  5. Season with pepper and salt to taste.

Finish and serve

  1. Skim off the herbs and any fat from the surface.

  2. Add the milk and bring to a boil 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. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  2. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  4. Rice + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,169 recipes

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

  5. Rice + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the soup slightly when stirred into the hot fat before the liquid goes in.
Rice
Softens during simmering and releases starch that gives the soup body.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mild sweetness to the finished soup.
White stock
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavour of the whole soup.

The step that matters

Stirring in the flour. Cooking flour in the hot fat until it is only well mixed, not browned, keeps its thickening power and a clean flavour. Browning adds a nutty taste and weakens thickening.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, rice, pepper, celery, milk. 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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