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Rice Tomato Soup

A simple tomato soup with rice, onion, ketchup, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and rice 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 Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a pot, combine the chopped onion and canned tomatoes.

  2. Add the rice, ketchup, salt, and pepper.

  3. Cook until the rice is soft.

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 + ricetop 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. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  4. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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

Canned tomatoes
Form the soup's base and add acidity and liquid.
Rice
Softens as it cooks, adding body and thickening the soup.
Ketchup
Adds sweetness and tang to balance the tomatoes.
Onion
Adds savoury aroma and sweetness as it softens in the pot.

The step that matters

Cook until the rice is soft. Rice must cook fully to become tender. Undercooked rice stays firm and gritty, while the starch it releases helps thicken the soup as it softens.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, rice, ketchup, 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.

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