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Arrowroot Pudding, Steamed

A steamed pudding made with arrowroot, milk, sugar, lemon rind, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Arrowroot Pudding, Steamed

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Mix the arrowroot smoothly with a little of the milk.

  2. Boil the remaining milk and pour it over the arrowroot, stirring constantly.

  3. Return to the saucepan, stir, and cook over heat until thick.

Finish and steam

  1. Cool slightly, then add the sugar, lemon rind, and beaten eggs.

  2. Pour into a buttered mold or basin and steam gently for 1 to 1.5 hours.

  3. Serve with custard, wine, or any suitable sauce.

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 + lemontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together553 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  3. Arrowroot + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together817 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon 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 milk into a smooth, set custard without making it cloudy or grainy.
Eggs
Set when heated, giving the pudding structure and a tender, sliceable body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the arrowroot thickens and the eggs set into.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness and a soft, slightly caramel flavour.

The step that matters

Cooking the thickened base until thick. Arrowroot thickens as it heats and must be stirred constantly so it does not lump or scorch. Cook until thick before adding the eggs, because the eggs are added off the heat so they do not curdle or scramble.

Swap the arrowroot

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

  1. Asparagusfits about as well
  2. Arrowrootthe original
  3. Sweet potatofits about as well
  4. Capsicumfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, lemon, egg. 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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