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Dessert

Rice Dumplings

Rice dumplings are apples stuffed with sugar and cinnamon, wrapped in rice, boiled, and served with sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,598 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓

Rice Dumplings

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rice

  1. Wash the rice in several changes of cold water.

  2. Boil the rice gently in the water for 30 minutes; then drain in a colander.

Assemble the dumplings

  1. Pare the apples and remove the cores.

  2. Fill the cores with sugar and cinnamon.

  3. Cover each apple with a thick layer of boiled rice.

  4. Tie each dumpling tightly in a dumpling cloth.

Cook and serve

  1. Place the dumplings in a pot of cold water.

  2. Bring the water to a boil and cook for 40 minutes.

  3. Untie the cloth and carefully turn the dumplings out onto a large plate.

  4. Serve with hard or cream sauce.

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. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Rice + appletop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,311 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

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

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

Rice
Forms a starchy coating that cooks into a soft, cohesive wrapper around the apple.
Tart apples
Provide the fruit filling, and their acidity balances the sweetness of the sugar.
Sugar
Sweetens the apple filling and helps it caramelize slightly as it cooks.
Cinnamon
Adds warm aroma to the apple filling.

The step that matters

Tying the dumplings tightly. A tight cloth keeps the rice layer pressed against the apple during boiling. A loose wrap lets the rice break apart or fall away, leaving the apple exposed to the water.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, sugar, cinnamon):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Blueberryfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, sugar, 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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