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Drink

Rice Water

Rice water is a beverage made by cooking rice in water with cinnamon, then adding lemon juice, sugar, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Rice Water

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 Water

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and cook

  1. Wash the rice.

  2. Cook the rice in cold water with the stick of cinnamon until the rice is dissolved.

Season and serve

  1. Add lemon juice, sugar, and salt to taste.

  2. Serve hot or cold.

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.

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.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Rice + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  5. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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
Its starch releases into the water as it breaks down, giving the drink body and a light thickness.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the sweetness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the lemon and cinnamon.
Cinnamon
Infuses the water with a warm, aromatic flavor during cooking.

The step that matters

Cook the rice until it dissolves. The rice must cook long enough for its starch to break down and release into the water. Stopping early leaves the liquid thin and the grains whole, so the drink lacks its characteristic body.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Blueberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe 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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