Skip to main content
Main

To Boil Rice

A simple boiled rice prepared with water, salt, lemon juice, and rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lemon and rice 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

  1. Combine 3 quarts of water, a piece of salt, and the juice of ½ lemon in a clean saucepan.

  2. Wash and pick ¾ pound of rice.

Cook

  1. When the water boils, add the rice. Stir well.

  2. Boil for 20 minutes until each grain is distinct.

  3. Strain the rice through a sieve.

  4. Set the rice before the fire to dry or in a hot cupboard. Stir with a fork 2-3 times to prevent caking.

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. Lemon + ricetop 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
Starch that swells with water, becoming the body of the dish as it cooks.
Water
Cooking medium that hydrates the grains and carries heat evenly through them.
Lemon juice
Acidity that helps the grains stay firm and separate during boiling.

The step that matters

Boil for 20 minutes until each grain is distinct. Boiling too long breaks down the starch and makes the grains soft and sticky. Stopping at the right point keeps each grain firm and separate.

“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.

More boiled rice recipes

Pudding 38Plain 16for Soups and Curries 6for Curries 3for Curry 3Indian 3 See all 250 →

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesRice FrittersRice Fritters84 recipesSteamed RiceSteamed Rice48 recipesRice Griddle CakesRice Griddle Cakes28 recipes