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Cream of Rice Soup

A creamy soup made with rice, stock, milk, and cream, seasoned with onion, parsley, celery, salt, and white pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cream of Rice Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup base

  1. Cover the rice with white stock, adding the onion, parsley, and celery.

  2. Boil for 35 minutes.

  3. Press the mixture through a sieve.

Finish and serve

  1. Scald the milk.

  2. Add the rice mixture.

  3. Season with salt and white pepper.

  4. Two minutes before serving, stir in the cream.

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. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 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. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 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

Rice
Breaks down during boiling, releasing starch that thickens the soup and gives it body.
Milk
Dilutes the pressed rice into a smooth, mildly sweet, creamy liquid.
Cream
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel when stirred in at the end.
Onion
Infuses the stock during simmering with a savory aromatic flavor.

The step that matters

Stir in the cream two minutes before serving. Cream is added at the end because prolonged boiling can cause it to separate and dull its fresh richness. A brief heating only warms it through and keeps the soup smooth.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, onion, parsley, celery, milk, cream):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, onion, parsley, celery, milk, 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.

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