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Chicken Tapioca Soup

A soup made with chicken stock, tapioca, milk, celery, onion, mace, salt, pepper, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 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 ↓

Chicken Tapioca Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock and tapioca

  1. Boil the bones and leftover chicken pieces in water to make stock, then reduce to desired strength.

  2. Soak the tapioca overnight.

  3. Add the soaked tapioca to the chicken stock and simmer for 2 to 3 hours until soft.

Make the milk base

  1. In a separate saucepan, cook the milk, celery, chopped onion, and mace for about 30 minutes.

Combine and finish

  1. Once the tapioca is soft, pour it into the milk mixture.

  2. Strain the soup through a wire sieve, using a wooden spoon to push it through.

  3. Add salt, pepper, and butter, then heat just to boiling point 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.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Tapioca
Swells and softens during simmering, thickening the soup and giving it a smooth body.
Milk
Adds creaminess and body, mellowing the soup into a rich, smooth texture.
Chicken bones and meat
Provide the savoury stock that forms the base flavour of the soup.
Butter
Adds fat for a rounded mouthfeel and richness at the end.

The step that matters

Simmering the tapioca until soft. Tapioca must cook long enough to fully soften and swell; undercooked starch stays firm and grainy. Gentle simmering prevents scorching and sticking on the pan bottom.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, meat, milk, celery, onion, pepper, butter. 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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