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Ground Rice Gruel

A simple gruel made from ground rice, almond meal, and water, optionally flavored with raisins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and raisin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,781 recipes. Both carry 2-nonanone, which smells fruity, floral. The science ↓

Ground Rice Gruel

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In the inner cup of a double boiler, combine 3 cups of water, ¼ teaspoon salt, 1 tablespoon almond meal, and 1 tablespoon ground rice.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Place the inner cup in the double boiler with boiling water and cook for 1 hour.

  4. If desired, add a few raisins for extra flavor.

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. Almond + raisintop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  2. Almond + ricetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Rice + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together565 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Ground rice
Thickens the water into a smooth, gruel-like texture as it cooks.
Almond meal
Adds body and a mild nutty flavor to the thin gruel.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Cherryfits about as well
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, 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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