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Drink

Rice Water

Rice water is a simple beverage made by cooking rice in water and optionally adding lemon peel, cloves, or spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Rice Water

Why it works: Lemon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,150 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Rice Water

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the rice well in cold water.

  2. Soak the rice in 1 quart of water at tepid heat for 3 hours.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil the mixture slowly for 1 hour.

  2. Strain the liquid before serving.

  3. Flavor with lemon peel, cloves, or other spices if desired.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Lemon + clovetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Rice + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

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

  3. Rice + clovetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Releases starch into the water, giving the liquid body and a light, mild thickness.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture slowly for 1 hour. A gentle simmer lets the rice soften and release its starch without breaking apart or boiling over, keeping the liquid clearer and smoother.

Swap the lemon

The recipe marks lemon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, clove):

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Cherryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, clove. 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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