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 ↓
Arrow Root
Ingredients
Directions
In a bowl, mix the arrowroot with a small amount of cold liquid to form a smooth paste.
Boil the remaining liquid in a saucepan.
Stir the arrowroot paste into the boiling liquid.
Cook for one minute until thickened.
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.
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Arrowroot + lemontop 4% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together553 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Arrowroot + cinnamontop 4% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together166 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7,950 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Wine + brandytop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,427 recipes
Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).
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Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,655 recipes
Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Arrowroot
- Starch that swells in hot liquid and thickens it into a smooth, glossy texture.
- Milk or water
- The liquid base that the arrowroot starch thickens into a sauce.
The step that matters
Stirring the paste into boiling liquid. Arrowroot must first be smoothed in cold liquid so it does not clump. Adding it to boiling liquid makes the starch granules swell and thicken quickly. Adding it to lukewarm liquid can leave lumps or a weak set.
“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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