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Soup

Tapioca Cream

A creamy soup made with tapioca, eggs, stock, and cream, seasoned with pepper and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Tapioca Cream

Why it works: Cream and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 23% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 21,449 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Tapioca Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the tapioca base

  1. Pour 1 pint of white stock into a saucepan and bring to a boil.

  2. Gradually stir in 1 oz. of crushed tapioca.

  3. Reduce heat and let it simmer until the tapioca is clear.

Add the egg cream

  1. Combine the yolks of 2 eggs with 2 tablespoons of cream or milk and stir the egg mixture, then strain it into another bowl.

  2. Remove the saucepan from heat and place it on a trivet.

  3. Slowly add a few tablespoons of the stock to the egg mixture, stirring constantly to prevent curdling.

  4. Add the egg mixture back into the saucepan and stir well.

  5. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt to taste.

Serve

  1. Warm the soup gently, making sure it does not boil.

  2. Serve in a hot soup tureen.

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.

  1. Cream + peppertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

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

Cream and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 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

White stock
Forms the liquid base of the soup and carries its flavor.
Tapioca
Thickens the stock as it cooks, turning it clear and slightly viscous.
Eggs
Yolks enrich the soup and thicken it into a smooth, creamy body.
Cream or milk
Adds richness and moisture, and dilutes the yolks so they blend smoothly.

The step that matters

Tempering the egg mixture. Adding hot stock to yolks slowly while stirring constantly gradually raises their temperature, so they blend in without scrambling or curdling. Adding it all at once or skipping the stirring can leave bits of cooked egg in the soup.

“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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