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Rice Gruel

A simple porridge made by boiling ground rice with water, flavored with cinnamon and sweetened.

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

Why it works: Rice and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,137 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Rice Gruel

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the porridge

  1. In a pot, combine the ground rice and water.

  2. Boil gently for 20 minutes.

  3. A few minutes before it is done, add the ground cinnamon.

Finish and serve

  1. Strain the mixture and sweeten to taste.

  2. If desired, add wine 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.

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. Rice + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Cinnamon + winetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,170 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  3. Rice + winetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,223 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Ground rice
Its starch thickens the water as it cooks, giving the porridge body.
Ground cinnamon
Adds a warm, aromatic flavour to the porridge.
Sweetener
Adds sweetness to balance the plain cooked rice.

The step that matters

Adding the cinnamon late. Cinnamon's aromatic compounds are volatile, so prolonged boiling drives off much of their fragrance. Adding it only a few minutes before the end keeps more of its aroma in the finished porridge.

“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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