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Arrowroot Sauce
2 ozs. (2 heaping tablespoonfuls) arrowroot 2 tablespoonfuls sugar 1/2 pint (I cup) water 1/2 pint (I cup) milk 1 teaspoonful rose extract Mix the arrowroot with the water in a small earthenware pan, add the milk, sugar, and boil for four minutes; add the rose extract or any flavoring preferred.
A sweet pouring sauce for puddings, thickened with arrowroot rather than flour. Two things in the original need attention: the starch quantity and the four-minute boil.
- Do not boil it hardArrowroot reaches full thickness the moment it comes to a simmer, and prolonged boiling breaks the starch down again — the sauce thins and turns slack. Bring it just to the boil, hold it under a minute, and take it off.
- The arrowroot quantity is inconsistentTwo ounces by weight is roughly five to seven level tablespoons, not two heaping ones. Two ounces to a pint of liquid will set firm enough to mould rather than pour; for a pouring consistency use about 2 tablespoons of arrowroot to the 2 cups of liquid.
- Half a pintAn American half-pint is 1 cup, 8 fl oz, as the recipe itself glosses. If you are working from a British edition of the period the pint is 20 oz and the half-pint 10 oz.
- Slurry firstThe instruction to mix the arrowroot with the water before adding the milk matters — arrowroot dropped into hot liquid seizes into lumps that will not whisk out. Combine it with the cold water to a smooth cream, then stir in the milk.
- The earthenware panThe original presumably intends an earthenware pan that could take direct heat. Any heavy-bottomed saucepan does the same job; a thin pan will scorch the milk before the starch thickens.
- Rose extractModern rose extracts and essences are generally much more concentrated than rosewater, so with a modern extract start with a quarter teaspoon and taste; if substituting rosewater, use 1-2 tablespoons in place of the teaspoon. Vanilla, almond or lemon all work in its place.
- Texture and holdingArrowroot gives a glossy sauce (clear when made with water, though opaque here because of the milk), and it thins as it sits and skins over as it cools. Serve within a few minutes of making; reheating will not restore the body.
- YieldAbout 2 cups at the lighter thickening — enough to sauce four to six servings of steamed or baked pudding.
Arrowroot is the starch washed from the rhizomes of Maranta arundinacea, a tropical American plant long cultivated in the West Indies and grown commercially above all on St Vincent, which was the leading source of the trade. It reached British and American kitchens partly as a cooking starch and partly as an invalid food: it was regarded as exceptionally easy to digest, and arrowroot gruels and puddings were common nursery and sickroom fare, which is why sauces like this one are sweetened and perfumed rather than savoury. The rose flavouring points back to an older English tradition of scenting sweet dishes with rosewater, a habit much diminished by 1900 -- its survival here, offered alongside "any flavoring preferred," catches the tail end of it. The name is often traced to an Arawak word for a flour-yielding root, though the story that the plant was used to draw poison from arrow wounds is generally treated as folk etymology rather than documented fact.