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Cream of Rice Soup

A soup made from rice simmered in chicken stock, flavored with onion, celery, salt, pepper, and finished with cream or milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and pepper 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 ↓

Cream of Rice Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the rice carefully.

  2. Add the rice, onion, and celery to the chicken stock.

  3. Cook slowly for 2 hours without boiling.

  4. Strain the mixture through a sieve.

Finish the soup

  1. Add seasoning and the cream or milk, heated just to a boil.

  2. If using milk, add the butter.

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

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

  2. Chicken + ricetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,769 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Breaks down during slow cooking to thicken the stock into a creamy body.
Cream or milk
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy texture to the finished soup.
Butter
Adds fat and rich flavour when milk is used instead of cream.
Onion
Contributes savory aroma and depth to the stock.
Celery
Contributes aromatic, savory background flavour to the stock.

The step that matters

Cook slowly without boiling. Gentle simmering lets the rice soften and release starch so the soup thickens smoothly. A rolling boil can scorch the bottom, cook the rice unevenly, and make the texture grainy.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Garlicfits about as well
  2. Celerythe original
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Nutmegfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, rice, cream, onion, pepper, butter, 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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