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Tapioca Soup with Rice

A hearty soup made with beef broth, tapioca, rice, salt, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,265 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Tapioca Soup with Rice

Oven, in the book's wordsA warm oven

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Bring the beef broth to a boil.

  2. Slowly stir in the tapioca and boil for 30 minutes.

  3. Cook the rice in a separate pot until done, then drain.

  4. Combine the rice with the tapioca mixture and boil for a few minutes.

  5. Skim the soup, season with salt, and pour into a soup tureen.

  6. Mix in the chopped parsley 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. Beef + ricetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,265 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  2. Rice + parsleytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,762 recipes

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

  3. Beef + parsleytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,866 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

Tapioca
Thickens the broth as it boils, giving the soup a light, slightly viscous body.
Rice
Adds bulk and a soft, tender texture to the soup.
Beef broth
Forms the liquid base and carries the flavour of the soup.

The step that matters

Slowly stir in the tapioca. Tapioca added all at once can clump into lumps that are hard to break up. Adding it slowly while the broth is boiling disperses the starch so it thickens evenly.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Pepperfits better
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, rice. 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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