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Cream of Rice Soup

A creamy soup made with rice, stock, milk, onion, celery, butter, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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

Cook the rice

  1. Wash and cook the rice in boiling water for 30 minutes.

Make the soup

  1. Add the cooked rice to the stock along with the chopped onion and celery.

  2. Cook slowly for 30 minutes until the rice is very soft.

  3. Pass the mixture through a sieve.

  4. Heat the milk until boiling, then add it to the strained mixture along with salt and pepper.

  5. Bring everything to a boil 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.

  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. Milk + buttertop 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 long simmering to thicken the soup and give it body.
Rich milk
Adds creaminess and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Stock
Provides the main savoury liquid base that carries the flavour of the soup.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Adding the hot milk to the strained mixture. Milk can curdle or separate when it meets a very hot or acidic liquid. Heating the milk first and adding it to the strained base, then bringing the soup to a boil gently, helps keep it smooth.

Swap the celery

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

  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, milk, cream, onion, pepper, butter. 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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