Why it works: Sugar and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Tapioca Puddings--Granular Tapioca
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Use any granular tapioca, cassava, manioc, or manioca.
Soak 5 tablespoons tapioca in 1 cup warm water for 10–30 minutes.
Add ¾–1 cup sugar, ½ teaspoon salt, and 3 cups water, and stir until dissolved.
Prepare syrup in a flat-bottomed granite or porcelain-lined pan.
Cook the apple tapioca
When boiling, drop in quarters of 6 medium-sized juicy apples.
Cook until nearly tender.
Add soaked tapioca, pressing it down into the syrup.
Cover dish and simmer slowly until tapioca is transparent, 5–15 minutes.
Serve warm (not hot) or cold, plain or with orange egg cream or custard sauce if cold; or orange or coconut flavored hard sauce if warm; or with nut or whipped dairy cream.
Other fruit versions
Make the same as Apple Tapioca, using twice as many peaches cut in halves.
Cook soaked tapioca in the syrup.
Pour over the berries, mix carefully, and pour into a pudding or fancy dish.
Serve cold.
A fluff of the fruit may be used for the sauce, if any.
Cook soaked tapioca in the syrup and pour over drained canned fruit.
Serve warm with the fruit juice (with added lemon juice and sugar if needed), thickened with corn starch or arrowroot.
Or serve cold with whipped cream, custard or other sauce.
Steam figs until tender (30–35 minutes).
Cut into pieces with shears and stir into tapioca cooked in the syrup.
Serve warm or cold with orange egg cream sauce.
Cook tapioca in syrup with a little lemon juice if desired.
Add quartered, slightly sweetened stewed prunes.
Serve with rich juice of prunes, cream or whipped cream.
Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)
Counts 2 of 3 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.
What these numbers assume: 2 portions
| Ingredient | Portion assumed | kcal |
|---|---|---|
| Sugar | 1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated | 49 |
| Lemon | juice of 1 lemon (48ml) | 12 |
| Water | not in our table | 0 |
One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.
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.
-
Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Tapioca (in the method)
- Starch that swells and thickens the syrup, turning the pudding translucent as it cooks.
- Apples (in the method)
- Supply the fruit flavour and soft, juicy body that the tapioca is cooked into.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the syrup and balances the tart fruit.
The step that matters
Simmer the tapioca slowly until transparent. Tapioca starch must swell and cook fully to turn clear and thicken. Boiling it hard or stopping early leaves the pudding chalky or lumpy, and it can stick and scorch on the pan bottom.
“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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