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Dessert

To Make Arrow-root

A sweetened milk pudding thickened with arrow-root, optionally flavored with lemon peel, port or white wine, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg 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 ↓

To Make Arrow-root

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the arrow-root

  1. Mix ½ cup arrow-root with ½ pint cold water and let it stand for 15 minutes.

  2. Pour off the water and stir in pounded sugar to taste.

Make the pudding

  1. Boil 1 pint milk and gradually pour it over the arrow-root while stirring continuously.

  2. For a variation, use water boiled with lemon peel, then stir in ⅓ cup port or white wine and a little nutmeg.

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

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

  2. Lemon + white winetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  3. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  4. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Milk + white winetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together929 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Arrow-root
Starch that thickens the liquid into a smooth, set pudding.
Milk
Adds body, richness and a creamy texture to the pudding.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the mild pudding.

The step that matters

Pour the boiling milk over the arrow-root while stirring continuously. Arrow-root starch swells and thickens quickly when heated. Pouring the milk in gradually while stirring keeps the starch dispersed, which prevents lumps and gives a smooth, evenly thickened pudding.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, white wine, 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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