Skip to main content
Soup

Turnip and Rice Soup

A soup of diced turnips and rice simmered in water and butter, finished with milk, pepper, salt, butter, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Turnip and Rice Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Simmer turnips and rice in water with butter until cooked.

  2. Pass the mixture through a fine sieve.

  3. Return to the pot, add milk, pepper, and salt, and simmer again. Stir frequently with a wooden spoon.

  4. Just before serving, add butter and cream.

Serve

  1. Serve with fried sippets or separately boiled rice.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Turnip + ricetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together824 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Turnip + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,252 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Turnips
Break down when simmered and sieved to give the soup its body and flavour.
Rice
Releases starch as it cooks, thickening the soup and giving it a smooth, creamy texture.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mild sweetness, softening the soup's flavour.
Cream
Added at the end to enrich the texture and mouthfeel without boiling.

The step that matters

Passing the mixture through a fine sieve. Pressing the cooked turnips and rice through a fine sieve removes fibres and lumps, which gives the soup a smooth texture. Skipping or rushing this leaves the soup coarse and grainy.

Swap the turnip

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Turnipthe original

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

You might also like

Indian Spiced Potato Soup with Tofu and SpinachIndian Spiced Potato Soup with Tofu and Spinach448 recipesClear Carrot and Bottle Gourd SoupClear Carrot and Bottle Gourd Soup65 recipesMock Bisque SoupMock Bisque Soup51 recipesCream of Asparagus SoupCream of Asparagus Soup42 recipes