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Arrowroot for Invalids

A thickened arrowroot and brandy jelly sweetened with sugar and flavored with nutmeg and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Arrowroot and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 159 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Arrowroot for Invalids

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Mix the arrowroot and brandy to form a paste.

  2. Add boiling water until the mixture thickens to a jelly-like consistency.

  3. Sweeten with cut-loaf sugar to taste.

  4. Grate in a little nutmeg and add a speck of salt.

  5. Heat on the stove for a few seconds.

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. Arrowroot + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together159 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Brandy + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,311 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  3. Arrowroot + brandytop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together141 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Brandy + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

  5. Arrowroot + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,073 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Brandy and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 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

Arrowroot
Thickens the liquid into a smooth, jelly-like consistency when heated with water.
Brandy
Mixed with the arrowroot to form a paste, helping it blend smoothly before the water is added.
Cut-loaf sugar
Adds sweetness to taste.

The step that matters

Add boiling water to the paste. Arrowroot thickens only once its starch granules are heated in liquid and swell. Pouring in the boiling water while stirring keeps the paste smooth and prevents lumps, so it thickens evenly.

Swap the arrowroot

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

  1. Sweet potatofits about as well
  2. Arrowrootthe original
  3. Shallotfits less well
  4. Beetrootfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against brandy, sugar, nutmeg. 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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