Why it works: Arrowroot and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 553 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓
Arrowroot Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Heat the water in a saucepan until boiling.
Stir in the sugar and arrowroot mixed with a little cold water until smooth.
Remove from heat after a few minutes.
Add lemon or almond flavoring to taste.
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.
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Arrowroot + lemontop 4% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together553 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + arrowroottop 20% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,073 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
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
- Thickens the liquid into a smooth, glossy sauce as it heats.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness that balances the mild, neutral flavor of the sauce.
The step that matters
Stirring in the arrowroot. Arrowroot must be mixed with cold water first, or it clumps when added to hot liquid. Its starch thickens on heating, so removing the pan from heat once thickened helps keep the sauce from thinning.
“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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