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Chinese Sizzling Rice Soup

"Chinese is one of my favorite cuisines to cook as well as eat. By cooking the rice before it is added to the soup, you will enjoy the crunchy texture with the other flavors in this delicious soup."

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Why it works: Bamboo shoots and rice work together. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and 46 recipes mention both. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

The recipe

6 servings
Prep10 min
Cook15 min

Ingredients

Contains: egg, wheat, tree nuts, shellfish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.

  1. Cook the rice in a pot of boiling water until tender, about 15 minutes. Drain well, spread on a tray, and let it air-dry for 20 minutes.

  2. Toss the chicken chunks with the sherry, 1/4 teaspoon of the salt, and 1 tablespoon of the cornstarch. Cover and set aside for 10 minutes.

  3. Beat the egg with 1 tablespoon of the cornstarch. Stir in the baby shrimp until coated.

  4. Heat the vegetable oil in a deep pan to 375°F (190°C). Fry the dried rice in batches until golden and crisp, 2 to 3 minutes. Drain on paper towels.

  5. Pour off all but a thin film of oil. Stir-fry the chicken until cooked through to 165°F (74°C), about 4 minutes. Add the shrimp and cook until opaque and reaching 145°F (63°C), about 2 minutes. Remove both.

  6. Add the mushrooms, water chestnuts, bamboo shoots, and green beans to the pan. Stir-fry for 2 minutes, then pour in the chicken broth and bring to a boil.

  7. Return the chicken and shrimp to the pan. Mix 2 tablespoons of cornstarch with a splash of water, stir it in, and simmer 1 minute until thickened. Season with the remaining salt.

  8. Place the crispy rice in serving bowls and ladle the hot soup over it so it sizzles at the table.

By allrecipes. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Bamboo shoots + ricetop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together46 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together61 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Chicken + mushroomtop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together4,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

  4. Mushroom + sherrytop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,176 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol (smoky, clove).

  5. Chicken + ricetop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together4,569 recipes

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

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

Flavor stand-ins for the green beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shrimp, chicken, egg, mushroom, water chestnut, bamboo shoots, sherry):

  1. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  2. Asparagusbetter flavor fit
  3. Welsh onionbetter flavor fit
  4. Green beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against shrimp, chicken, egg, mushroom, water chestnut, bamboo shoots, sherry. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).