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Tapioca Soup

A clear soup made with tapioca, onion, carrot, and bone stock, seasoned with salt, lemon juice, and optional burnt sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and carrot are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 21,601 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Tapioca Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Boil the onion and carrot in the bone stock for 20 minutes.

  2. If the stock is not a good color, add ½ teaspoon of burnt sugar.

  3. Strain out the vegetables.

Cook the tapioca and serve

  1. Wash the tapioca in cold water.

  2. Stir the tapioca into the stock.

  3. Continue stirring until it is clear.

  4. Flavor with salt and lemon juice.

  5. Serve very hot.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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.

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. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,351 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  4. Onion + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,646 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Carrot + sugartop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,211 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
Thickens the stock as it cooks, giving the soup a light body and clear appearance.
Bone stock
Forms the liquid base and carries the flavor of the soup.
Onion
Adds savory aromatic flavor to the stock during boiling.
Carrot
Adds subtle sweetness and aroma to the stock during boiling.

The step that matters

Continue stirring until it is clear. Tapioca starch can settle and clump on the bottom of the pot if left unstirred. Constant stirring keeps the starch dispersed so it thickens evenly and turns the soup clear.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, sugar, lemon):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, sugar, lemon. 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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