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Arrowroot Jelly
Mix an ounce or so of arrowroot with a little cold water, and when smooth, stir in some boiling water, beef tea, strong chicken or veal broth, or milk may be used instead of water; add a wineglassful of port or Madeira and flavor with nutmeg, or vanilla, if milk or water is used.
An invalid's dish rather than a dessert: arrowroot thickened into a soft, spoonable jelly and enriched with broth or wine. The original gives quantities only for the starch, so the liquid ratio is the thing you have to settle yourself.
- The hinge: slurry first, then boiling liquidArrowroot must be smoothed with cold liquid before any hot liquid touches it, or it seizes into lumps that never disperse. Pour the boiling liquid onto the slurry in a thin stream, whisking constantly.
- Do not boil it after thickeningUnlike cornstarch, arrowroot loses its thickening power if held at a boil. Bring the mixture just to the point where it clears and thickens, then take it off the heat immediately.
- The missing ratioThe recipe names an ounce of arrowroot and no measure of liquid at all. An ounce is roughly 3 to 4 tablespoons; for a soft jelly that sets on cooling, that quantity suits about a pint (2 cups) of liquid. Less liquid gives a stiff paste, more gives a thin gruel.
- WineglassfulIn American cookbooks of this period a wineglass is about 2 fluid ounces, or a quarter cup. Added to a pint of liquid, that is a pronounced but not overwhelming fortified-wine flavor.
- Beef teaNot a modern product. It was lean beef steeped in water at a low temperature and strained, essentially an unclarified light beef essence. A good unsalted beef or veal stock, reduced slightly, is the nearest equivalent.
- Add the wine off the heatPort or Madeira stirred in after thickening keeps its aroma and avoids further diluting the set. Nutmeg is grated over at the same moment.
- Setting and servingA pint yields four small cups. Pour into individual cups or a wetted mold and chill until set, two to three hours; arrowroot jellies are soft-set and will not unmold cleanly unless made stiff.
- Savory or sweet, not bothSavory or sweet -- The clause "flavor with nutmeg, or vanilla, if milk or water is used" is ambiguously punctuated. Vanilla plainly belongs to the milk or water versions; whether the nutmeg was meant only for those or for the broth versions as well cannot be settled from the text.
Arrowroot is the starch of Maranta arundinacea, a West Indian rhizome, and by the late nineteenth century it had a settled place in the sickroom rather than the dining room. It was prized because it was thought bland, easily digested and free of the "heaviness" attributed to wheat flour, so it turns up in chapter after chapter of invalid cookery alongside beef tea, panada and barley water. That is why a fortified wine appears here without apology: port and Madeira were standard restoratives for convalescents, and a wineglass of either in a cup of beef-thickened jelly was regarded as nourishment, not indulgence.