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Foiled cARROWROOT

A clear broth made from arrowroot, lemon rind, sugar, and sherry or brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and arrowroot 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 ↓

Foiled cARROWROOT

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Moisten the arrowroot with 2 tablespoons of water.

  2. Boil the remaining water and pour it over the arrowroot.

  3. Return the mixture to the saucepan and add the sugar and lemon rind.

  4. Boil for 5 minutes, then add the wine or brandy.

  5. Allow to cool and serve.

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. Lemon + arrowroottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together553 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Arrowroot + sherrytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together129 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + sherrytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,273 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

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

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

Lemon and sugar 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 light, clear broth as it cooks.
Sherry or brandy
Adds aroma and flavour; added after boiling so its fragrance is kept.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the wine and lemon.

The step that matters

Boil for 5 minutes, then add the wine or brandy. Arrowroot thickens when it boils and needs to be stirred so it does not clump. Adding alcohol after boiling keeps its aroma, since heat drives much of it off.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Pineapplefits about as well
  4. Figfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against arrowroot, 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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