Arrowroot Comments from "Minimax Cookbook"

In his book "Minimax Cookbook", Kerr says that both arrowroot and cornstarch are pure starches. He prefers them to flour for thickening liquids.

He recommends arrowroot for dark hot sauces because of its clarity and its lack of taste that might mask the food flavor. Arrowroot is good, too, he says, for giving pasta a glaze when he wants the pasta to have the look of oil on it.

Arrowroot, however, has a drawback in that when it cools, especially in contact with dairy foods, it develops an unusually slippery feel.

Another difference, according to Kerr, is that cornstarch requires thirty seconds at the boil to remove its starchy taste, while arrowroot clears in very hot liquid without the need to boil it.

Posted by Len S (elm at delphi.com) to rec.food.cooking on 27 Nov 1995.