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Rich Caudle

A hot rice and oatmeal soup flavored with sugar, cinnamon, brandy, malt liquor, and white wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Rich Caudle

Ingredients

Directions

Make the rice base

  1. In a pot, bring water to a boil.

  2. Mix grated rice with a little cold water, then add to boiling water.

  3. Stir until the mixture reaches a proper consistency.

  4. Add sugar, cinnamon, and brandy; boil together.

Make the oatmeal gruel

  1. In another pot, make a gruel with oatmeal and malt liquor; boil and sweeten.

  2. Add white wine and spices if desired; boil all together.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Brandy + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together620 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Cinnamon + brandytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,199 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Rice + malttop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

What each ingredient does

Grated rice
Thickens the liquid as its starch cooks, giving the drink body.
Oatmeal
Thickens the gruel and adds a soft, porridge-like texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the sharpness of the alcohol.
Brandy
Adds strong alcoholic warmth and aroma to the mixture.
Malt liquor
Provides the liquid base for the gruel and its malty flavour.

The step that matters

Bringing the rice mixture to a proper consistency. Grated rice thickens as its starch gelatinises in hot liquid. Stirring while it cooks keeps it from settling or scorching at the bottom, and stopping at the right point gives a smooth, even body rather than a lumpy or thin result.

“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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