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Rice Dumplings

Rice dumplings filled with apples, brown sugar, cloves, and cinnamon, boiled in buttered cloths.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Rice Dumplings

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Knead the boiled rice in a basin with a spoon until it forms a smooth paste.

  2. Peel the apples and remove the cores, filling the holes with brown sugar, cloves, and cinnamon.

Shape and cook

  1. Form the rice into two round balls and roll them out to the size of large saucers.

  2. Place an apple in the center of each rice flat and fold the rice around it to form a purse shape.

  3. Tie the dumplings in buttered cloths and boil for about 45 minutes.

  4. For easier shaping, dip your hands in cold water before handling the paste.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Apple + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Boiled rice
Forms the soft, pliable wrapper that holds the apple and sets into a tender casing when cooked.
Apples
Supply the fruit filling that softens during boiling and gives the dumpling its main flavor.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a caramel-like depth to the apple filling.
Cloves
Contribute warm, aromatic spice flavor to the apple filling.

The step that matters

Forming the rice wrapper. Cooked rice is sticky and can tear or crack when rolled and folded around the apple. Wet hands keep the paste from adhering to your skin, so the wrapper stays smooth and seals without gaps that could let filling leak during boiling.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, sugar, clove, cinnamon, butter):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, sugar, clove, cinnamon, butter. 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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