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Dessert

Arrow-root Milk

A sweet milk dessert made with arrowroot, sugar, lemon peel, salt, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Arrow-root Milk

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Combine arrowroot, sugar, lemon peel, salt, and milk in a pan.

  2. Place the pan on the fire and stir gently.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil for 10 minutes, then serve.

Notes

  1. If lemons are unavailable, use a little lemon essence instead.

  2. If short on milk, use half water.

  3. Adding butter improves the dish.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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 (in the method)
Starch that thickens the milk into a smooth, set pudding as it heats.
Milk
Main liquid that gives the dish its body and creamy texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the flavour of the milk.
Lemon peel
Adds a bright citrus aroma that flavours the milk as it cooks.
Butter
Optional fat that adds richness and a softer mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Stir gently while the pan heats. Arrowroot starch thickens sharply as it heats. Stirring keeps the starch evenly dispersed so it does not clump or scorch on the base of the pan.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, butter. 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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