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Conge Water Drink

A sweetened rice water drink flavored with lime juice and nutmeg, optionally spiked with rum.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lime and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 236 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Conge Water Drink

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the rice.

  2. Place the washed rice in a pot with cold water.

  3. Boil the rice until very soft, then strain it.

Flavour and serve

  1. Add lime juice, nutmeg, and sugar to the strained liquid.

  2. Stir in rum 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.

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. Lime + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together236 recipes

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

  2. Rice + limetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,014 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Rice + nutmegtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,779 recipes

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

  4. Nutmeg + rumtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together646 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Lime + rumtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together412 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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 drink its body and milky, slightly thick texture.
Lime juice
Adds sharp acidity that brightens the drink and balances the sweetness.
Nutmeg
Adds a warm, spiced aroma.
Sugar
Adds sweetness, adjusted to taste.

The step that matters

Boil the rice until very soft, then strain it. Boiling until the rice is very soft lets starch and flavour leave the grains and dissolve into the water. Under-cooked rice gives a thin, weak liquid. Straining then removes the solids so the drink is smooth.

Swap the lime

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Limethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, nutmeg, sugar, rum. 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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