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Arrow Root

A sweetened milk beverage thickened with arrowroot, flavored with cinnamon and optional brandy or raisins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and raisin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,390 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Arrow Root

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Mix the arrow-root with cold milk in a small bowl.

  2. Slowly stir the mixture into the boiling milk.

  3. Let it simmer for 5 minutes, stirring constantly.

  4. Add sugar, salt, and flavor with cinnamon, brandy, or boiled raisins if desired.

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. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Brandy + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,768 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Arrow-root
Thickens the milk as its starch swells and gelatinizes when heated, giving a smooth, light body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the starch thickens and provides the creamy body of the drink.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the mild, plain flavor of the milk.

The step that matters

Slowly stirring the arrow-root mixture into the boiling milk. Arrow-root starch clumps when it meets hot liquid all at once, because the outer granules swell and seal the inner ones. Adding it slowly while stirring keeps the granules separated so the mixture thickens evenly and smoothly.

Swap the raisin

The recipe marks raisin as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, sugar, cinnamon, brandy):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, cinnamon, 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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