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Drink

A Cup of Arrowroot

A thickened drink made from arrowroot, sherry, sugar, and boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sherry and arrowroot work together. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 129 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyraldehyde, which smells malty, chocolate. The science ↓

A Cup of Arrowroot

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a cup, mix the arrowroot with sherry to form a smooth paste.

  2. Add the sugar and stir well.

  3. Pour in the boiling water while stirring continuously until the mixture thickens to the consistency of thick cream.

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

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

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

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

  3. Sherry + sugartop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,141 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Arrowroot
Thickens the drink as its starch swells in hot water, giving a smooth, creamy body.
Sherry
Adds aroma and flavour to the paste before the boiling water is added.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the drink.

The step that matters

Adding the boiling water while stirring. Arrowroot thickens when its starch granules swell and gelatinise in hot liquid. Pouring the water in while stirring continuously keeps the paste smooth and prevents lumps from forming as it thickens.

Swap the arrowroot

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Arrowrootthe original
  3. Sweet potatofits about as well
  4. Mustardfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sherry, sugar. 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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