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Taro Coconut Tapioca Dessert

"Taro is a purple root vegetable, like a sweet potato, that is used in Asian recipes. Taro, tapioca and rock sugar can be found in most Chinese grocery stores. This recipe comes from the mom of one of my best friends, and I've loved it for years. It's a traditional Asian dessert, and like most, it is like a sweet soup. It can be served hot or cold. I have it hot the first night and refrigerate the rest for seconds the next day! When served cold, it will seem a little thicker. "

By allrecipes · From Open Recipes · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Tapioca pearl and taro work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and 4 recipes mention both. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

The recipe

12 servings
Prep15 min
Cook20 min

Ingredients

Directions

Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.

  1. Bring the first portion of water to a boil in a large pot. Add the tapioca pearls, stir, and cook over medium heat for 12 to 15 minutes, stirring often, until most pearls look translucent.

  2. Cover the pot, remove it from the heat, and let the pearls rest for 10 minutes until fully clear. Drain and rinse under cold water.

  3. In a separate saucepan, bring the second portion of water and the rock sugar candy to a simmer, stirring until the sugar dissolves.

  4. Add the taro cubes to the sugar syrup and simmer over medium-low heat for 10 minutes, or until the taro is tender when pierced with a fork.

  5. Stir in the coconut milk and warm gently for 3 minutes without letting it boil.

  6. Add the drained tapioca pearls to the taro and coconut mixture, stir to combine, and serve warm, or chill before serving if you prefer it cold.

By allrecipes. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Tapioca pearl + tarotop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together4 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Coconut + milktop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,642 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Taro + coconuttop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together15 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Tapioca pearl + sugartop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together13 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Milk + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together77,855 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Milk and sugar share little aroma chemistry, yet 77,855 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs