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Dessert

Rice Jelly

Rice jelly is a sweet, clear gelatin made from rice flour and boiling water, optionally flavored with cinnamon or lemon.

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

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 Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix enough water with the rice flour to make a thin paste.

  2. Add the paste to the boiling water.

  3. Sweeten with loaf sugar to taste.

Cook and set

  1. Boil until the mixture is transparent.

  2. If for a patient with summer complaint, add a stick of cinnamon while boiling.

  3. If for a patient with fever, add several drops of lemon juice instead.

  4. Mold the jelly.

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 + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Rice flour
Thickens the water into a jelly as its starch swells and sets when cooled.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the mild, plain flavour of the jelly.

The step that matters

Adding the paste to boiling water. Rice flour must be mixed into a smooth thin paste first so it disperses without lumps. Stirring it into hot water as a dry powder clumps and leaves uneven thickening, while the starch needs to be fully heated to thicken properly.

Swap the cinnamon

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

  1. Cinnamonthe original
  2. Turmericfits about as well
  3. Nutmegfits less well
  4. Marjoramfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, flour, sugar, lemon. 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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