Why it works: Sugar and red currant are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 26% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,156 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Tapioca Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Soak the tapioca in cold water overnight.
Cook
In the morning, cook the soaked tapioca in a double saucepan for 1 hour, stirring frequently.
Once cooked, add sugar, salt, and fruit jelly, mixing thoroughly.
Set and serve
Pour the mixture into a mold and let it cool.
Serve with cream and caster sugar.
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.
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Sugar + red curranttop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,156 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Tapioca
- Its starch swells and thickens the liquid as it cooks, giving the pudding its body.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness that balances the mild, neutral flavour of the tapioca.
- Fruit jelly
- Adds fruit flavour and tartness, and colours the pudding.
The step that matters
Stirring the tapioca while it cooks. As the grains heat in water, their starch swells and thickens the mixture, and it can settle and scorch on the base of the pan. Frequent stirring keeps the heat even and the texture smooth.
“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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