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Arrow-root Jelly

A clear jelly made from arrow-root, water, sugar, nutmeg, and optional alcohol or citrus.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Arrow-root Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

  1. Combine the water, sherry (or brandy), sugar, and nutmeg in a saucepan and bring to a boil.

  2. Gradually mix in the arrow-root that has been wet with a little cold water.

  3. Boil the mixture for three minutes.

Serve

  1. Pour the jelly into glasses or small cups.

  2. If preferred, flavor with lemon or orange juice instead of alcohol.

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 + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  3. Sherry + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,273 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

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

  5. Sugar + nutmegtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together23,364 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

Arrow-root
Thickens the liquid into a clear, soft jelly as its starch swells with heat.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the flavor of the alcohol and nutmeg.
Sherry
Adds liquid and a distinct aromatic flavor to the jelly.

The step that matters

Gradually mixing in the arrow-root. Arrowroot starch clumps if added to hot liquid all at once. Wetting it with cold water first and adding it slowly lets the granules disperse evenly, so the jelly thickens smoothly without lumps.

Swap the lemon

The recipe marks lemon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sherry, sugar, nutmeg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sherry, 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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