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Arrowroot Gruel

A simple thickened porridge made from arrowroot, water, optional sugar, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Arrowroot Gruel

Why it works: Arrowroot and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,073 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

Arrowroot Gruel

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

  1. Dissolve the arrowroot in a small amount of cold water.

  2. Bring the remaining water to a boil in a saucepan.

  3. Stir in the dissolved arrowroot and cook for 2-3 minutes until thickened.

  4. Add sugar and salt to taste, if desired.

  5. Serve warm.

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

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Arrowroot
Thickens the water into a smooth, translucent gruel as its starch gelatinizes when heated.

The step that matters

Stir in the dissolved arrowroot and cook until thickened. Arrowroot must be dissolved in cold water first so it does not clump, and it needs to be stirred into boiling water and cooked briefly so the starch swells and thickens fully.

“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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