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Drink

Rice Water

Rice water is a beverage made by soaking rice and a cinnamon stick in boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Rice Water

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 Water

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the rice thoroughly.

  2. Place the rice and cinnamon stick in a jug.

  3. Pour the boiling water over the rice and cover the jug.

  4. Let it cool; it's ready to serve.

Variation and flavor

  1. For a variation, boil the rice slowly for 1 hour and strain.

  2. Add lemon juice or any other fruit juice for flavor 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. 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. Rice + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

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

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 it a light, slightly cloudy body.
Cinnamon stick
Adds warm, sweet aroma and a gentle spiced flavor to the water.
Lemon juice or other fruit juice
Adds acidity and brightness to balance the mild, starchy water.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, cinnamon. 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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