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Dessert

Arrowroot Jelly

A sweet jelly made from arrowroot, water, port wine, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Arrowroot and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,073 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

Arrowroot Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

  1. In a cup, mix the arrowroot with 2 teaspoons of water until smooth.

  2. Boil the remaining water, then stir in the arrowroot mixture for a few minutes.

  3. Add the port wine and sugar to taste.

Set

  1. Pour into a small wet mold and let set.

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

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

  2. Arrowroot + port winetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together20 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Port wine + sugartop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together805 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 liquid into a clear, soft gel as it heats and cools.
Port wine
Adds fruity, rich flavour and colour to the jelly.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the wine.

The step that matters

Stir the arrowroot mixture into the boiling water. Arrowroot starch must be smoothed in first and then stirred while the liquid boils. The granules swell and thicken evenly. If they are added dry or left unstirred, lumps form and the jelly sets unevenly.

Swap the arrowroot

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Arrowrootthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against port wine, 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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