Name: Tapioca Custard
Ingredients: 4 tablespoons tapioca; 1 pint water; 1 quart milk; 3 egg yolks; 1 cup sugar; ¼ teaspoon salt; flavoring of choice; 3 egg whites

Why it works: Milk and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 88,785 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Tapioca Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Soak 4 tablespoons of tapioca in 1 pint of water overnight.

Make the custard

In the morning, add 1 quart of milk and bring to a boil.
Stir in the yolks of 3 eggs, 1 cup of sugar, salt, and flavoring.
Pour the mixture into a dish and top with the beaten egg whites.
Chill before serving.

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.

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.

Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together88,785 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together77,875 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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: Swells in water and thickens the custard as it cooks, giving it body.
Milk: Forms the liquid base and adds richness and creaminess.
Egg yolks: Add richness and help the custard set into a smooth, creamy texture.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and balances the flavor of the custard.
Egg whites: Beaten and spooned on top, they add a light, airy topping.

“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.