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 Jelly
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Tie the lemon rind and cinnamon stick together.
Cook the rice
In a double saucepan, combine the rice, water, tied lemon rind, cinnamon, and sugar.
Cook for one hour over low heat.
Remove the lemon rind and cinnamon.
Set and serve
Rub the rice through a sieve and pour into a mold to set.
Once set, turn out and serve with cream or custard.
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.
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Rice + cinnamontop 4% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,137 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7,950 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together30,779 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Rice + lemontop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,366 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
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Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Cinnamon and sugar 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
- Washed rice
- Starch that thickens as it cooks and gives the pudding its body.
- Water
- Cooks the rice until soft and creates the liquid base for the pudding.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the pudding taste balanced.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the pudding.
The step that matters
Rub the rice through a sieve. Pressing the cooked rice through a sieve breaks the grains down into a smooth, fine texture. Skipping this leaves the pudding grainy and less cohesive when it sets in the mold.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, cinnamon, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Blueberryfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against rice, cinnamon, sugar. 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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