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Rice Gruel, a Remedy for Relaxed Bowels

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and orange are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,067 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Rice Gruel, a Remedy for Relaxed Bowels

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil 8 ounces of rice in 1 quart of water very gently for about 1 hour in a covered saucepan on the side of the hob.

  2. Ensure the rice is thoroughly cooked until the grains look dissolved.

  3. Add a bit of orange peel or cinnamon while boiling.

  4. Once soft, sweeten the gruel with loaf sugar and stir in 1 tablespoon of brandy.

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. Rice + orangetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  2. Orange + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Rice + brandytop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together378 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and brandy barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 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

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, sugar, brandy. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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