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Drink

Rice Coffee, Especially Nice for Children or Weakly Patients

A beverage made by browning rice, steeping it in boiling water, and sweetening with sugar, served with boiled milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,374 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Rice Coffee, Especially Nice for Children or Weakly Patients

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rice

  1. Brown the rice carefully in a pan until it resembles coffee beans.

  2. Grind or mash the browned rice in a mortar.

Brew and serve

  1. Pour 1 quart of boiling water over the ground rice.

  2. Let it steep for 15 minutes.

  3. Strain if necessary to ensure a clear liquid.

  4. Sweeten with sugar and serve with boiled milk as desired.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  3. Rice + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,744 recipes

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

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Brown rice
Browning develops roasted, coffee-like aroma and color as the starches and sugars caramelize.
Boiling water
Extracts the roasted flavors and aroma from the ground rice into the liquid.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the roasted, slightly bitter flavor.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softens the roasted flavor when served with the drink.

The step that matters

Brown the rice carefully. Rice that is burnt tastes acrid and bitter, while rice that is under-browned tastes flat. Even, moderate heat and constant stirring brown the starches and sugars evenly, which gives the drink its coffee-like aroma.

“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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