Why it works: Rice and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,366 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓
To Boil Rice
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Pick out all discolored grains and wash the rice well in two waters.
Cook
Drop the rice into a kettle of boiling salted water.
For whiter rice, add lemon juice to the boiling water.
Set the kettle on the back of the stove over low heat and let the rice simmer slowly until done.
Do not stir the rice; when cooked, each kernel will be plump and separate.
Drain and serve
Pour the rice into a colander immediately when done and set it on the coolest part of the stove.
Toss the rice lightly in the colander.
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.
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Rice + lemontop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Forms the main body of the dish; its starch gelatinises as it cooks, making the grains tender.
- Water
- Hydrates the grains so they soften and swell as they simmer.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that helps keep the grains whiter during boiling.
The step that matters
Do not stir the rice while it simmers. Stirring rubs starch off the grain surfaces, which makes the rice sticky and clumpy. Leaving it undisturbed keeps the kernels separate and intact.
“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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