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Drink

To Make Rice Milk

A beverage made by boiling rice with cinnamon, then adding milk, egg, and flour, sweetened and optionally flavored with currants and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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To Make Rice Milk

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

To Make Rice Milk

Ingredients

Directions

Make the rice milk

  1. Boil rice in water with cinnamon until water is mostly gone, being careful not to burn it.

  2. Add milk and beaten egg to the rice, along with flour.

  3. Stir continuously until it boils.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove from heat and sweeten to taste.

  2. Add currants and nutmeg 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.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Breaks down while simmering, thickening the drink and giving it a creamy body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base and contributes creaminess and mild sweetness.
Egg
Sets with heat and helps thicken and enrich the mixture.
Flour
Thickens the liquid as its starch swells when heated.

The step that matters

Stirring while it comes to a boil. Milk and egg can scorch on the bottom of the pan or curdle if left unstirred, and the egg can scramble if it overheats. Constant stirring keeps heat even so the mixture thickens smoothly.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Blueberryfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, cinnamon, milk, egg, flour, sugar, nutmeg. 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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