Name: Potage Au Riz, or Rice Soup
Ingredients: 1 cup rice, well picked; 1 head of celery; 1 quart consommé; coarse sea salt, to taste

Why it works: Rice and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,169 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Potage Au Riz, or Rice Soup

Ingredients

1 cup rice, well picked
1 head of celery
1 quart consommé
coarse sea salt, to taste

Directions

Prepare

Blanch the rice in boiling water, then drain it in a sieve.

Simmer

In a soup pot, combine the rice and the head of celery.
Pour the consommé over the rice and celery.
Simmer on low heat for three hours.
If the soup becomes too thick, add more consommé.
Remove the celery 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.

Rice + celerytop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,169 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rice: Thickens the soup as its starch softens and releases into the broth during long simmering.
Celery: Flavours the consommé with a fresh, savoury aroma while it simmers.
Consommé: Forms the liquid base of the soup and carries its flavour and moisture.

The step that matters

Simmering the soup on low heat for three hours. Low, gentle heat lets the rice soften and release starch slowly without scorching on the pot bottom or boiling the grains apart. Checking thickness and adding consommé as needed keeps the texture smooth.

“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.