Rice’s geographic origin and variety play a vital role in commercial rice trade and consumption. However, a method for rapidly discriminating the geographical origins of rice from a different region is still lacking. Therefore, the current study developed a volatile organic compound (VOC) based geographical discrimination method using headspace gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (HS-GC-MS) to discriminate rice samples from Heilongjiang, Jilin, and Liaoning provinces. The rice VOCs in Heilongjiang, Liaoning, and Jilin were analyzed by agglomerative hierarchical clustering (AHC), principal component analysis (PCA), and partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA). The results show that the optimum parameters for headspace solid phase microextraction (HS-SPME) involved the extraction of 3.0 g of rice at 80 °C within 40 min. A total of 35 VOCs were identified from 30 rice varieties from Northeast China. The PLS-DA model exhibited good discrimination (R² = 0.992, Q² = 0.983, and Accuracy = 1.0) for rice samples from Heilongjiang, Liaoning, and Jilin. Moreover, K-nearest neighbors showed good specificity (100%) and accuracy (100%) in identifying the origin of samples. In conclusion, the present study established VOC fingerprinting as a highly efficient approach to identifying rice’s geographical origin. Our findings highlight the ability to discriminate rice from Heilongjiang, Liaoning, and Jilin provinces rapidly.

Improving the taste quality of rice porridge in a scientific way is essential to guiding residential and commercial production. This study aimed to determine the impact of konjac glucomannan (KGM) on the taste quality of rice porridge. The obtained results showed that the optimal concentration of KGM added to rice porridge is 1%. This was primarily observed via the reduction in water absorption, swelling power, and iodine blue value, thus increasing the hardness of rice porridge. At the same time, KGM also reduced the free water content and improved the water-holding capacity of rice porridge. Nevertheless, the pasting properties showed that the high viscosity of KGM raised the pasting viscosity of rice flour, thereby enhancing the stickiness of rice porridge with the increase in the KGM concentration. In addition, KGM gave the rice porridge a stronger aroma. Sensory evaluations further confirmed significant improvements in the color, odor, palatability, and overall acceptability of KGM-supplemented rice porridge (p < 0.05). To summarize, adding an appropriate amount of KGM was beneficial in forming a richer flavor and improving the taste quality of rice porridge. The findings offer valuable insights into the scientific processing of rice porridge products.