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Tapioca Cream Soup

A soup made with white stock, cream, onion, celery, tapioca, mace, butter, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By F. L. Gillette and Hugo Ziemann · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Tapioca Cream Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tapioca

  1. Wash the tapioca and soak it overnight in cold water.

Cook

  1. Cook the tapioca and the stock together very gently for one hour.

  2. Cut the onion and celery into small pieces, and cook them for twenty minutes with the milk and mace.

  3. Strain the mixture over the tapioca and stock.

Finish and serve

  1. Season with salt and pepper, add butter, and serve.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

209Calories
2 gProtein
17 gFat
13 gCarbs

Counts 6 of 8 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 6 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Celery1 stalk (40g)6
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0
Macenot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By F. L. Gillette and Hugo Ziemann. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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.

  1. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Tapioca
Swells as it cooks, thickening the soup and giving it a smooth, slightly gelatinous body.
White stock
Forms the liquid base that the tapioca cooks in and absorbs flavour from.
Cream
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a rounded, smooth finish.
Onion
Contributes savoury aromatic flavour to the soup base.
Celery
Contributes savoury aromatic flavour to the soup base.

The step that matters

Cooking the tapioca gently. Tapioca starch swells and can scorch or clump at high heat. A very gentle simmer for a full hour lets the granules hydrate evenly and thicken the soup smoothly.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, celery, butter, onion, pepper):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, celery, butter, onion, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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