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Sauce

Arrowroot Sauce

A thickened sauce made with arrowroot, milk, sugar, water, and optional brandy or sherry.

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

Why it works: Milk and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,738 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, sweet. The science ↓

Arrowroot Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix the arrowroot with the water.

  2. Add the milk and bring to a boil.

Cook and flavor

  1. Pour back into the saucepan with the sugar.

  2. Boil for four minutes.

  3. Add the brandy or sherry, or any preferred flavoring.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Milk + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,738 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

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

  3. Arrowroot + brandytop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together141 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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 as its starch swells with heat, giving a glossy, smooth sauce.
Milk
Forms the liquid base and adds creamy body and richness to the sauce.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the flavor of the milk.

The step that matters

Mix the arrowroot with the water before heating. Arrowroot starch clumps quickly if it meets hot liquid undispersed. Stirring it into cold water first lets the granules separate, so they thicken the sauce evenly once heated.

Swap the arrowroot

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, brandy. 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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