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 Cream
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the tapioca
Soak the tapioca in water overnight.
Drain the water and add the tapioca to 1 quart of milk in a saucepan.
Make the custard
Bring to a boil, then stir in the egg yolks, sugar, and salt.
Cook until the mixture begins to thicken.
Top and bake
Beat the egg whites until stiff, then spread over the top of the tapioca mixture.
Sprinkle a little sugar on top and brown in a 400°F (200°C) oven.
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.
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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 during soaking and thickens the milk as it cooks, giving the cream its body.
- Egg yolks
- Thicken the hot milk mixture and add richness to the cream.
- Egg whites
- Whipped into a stiff foam that forms a light topping which browns in the oven.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cream and helps the sprinkled topping brown.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base that the tapioca thickens into a cream.
The step that matters
Cook until the mixture begins to thicken. Tapioca starch thickens as it heats, and yolks can scramble if the mixture gets too hot. Stop at the first sign of thickening and keep stirring to keep the custard smooth.
“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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