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Dessert

Arrowroot Jelly

A sweet gelatinous dessert made from arrowroot, water, sherry or brandy, nutmeg, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and arrowroot 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 Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine water, sherry or brandy, nutmeg, and sugar in a saucepan.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Gradually mix in arrowroot that has been smoothed with cold water.

  4. Return the mixture to the saucepan, stirring continuously.

  5. Boil for three minutes.

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. Nutmeg + arrowroottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together159 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Sherry + arrowroottop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together129 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  3. Sherry + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,246 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Sugar + arrowroottop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,073 recipes

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

  5. Nutmeg + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together23,364 recipes

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

Nutmeg and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 23,364 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 clear, glossy jelly as it heats.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the flavour of the sherry or brandy.

The step that matters

Gradually mixing in the arrowroot. Arrowroot forms lumps if it is added to hot liquid all at once. Smoothing it in cold water first and adding it slowly lets the starch disperse evenly before it thickens.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Turmericfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sherry, sugar, arrowroot. 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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