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Dessert

Steamed Tapioca Pudding

A steamed pudding made from tapioca, milk, eggs, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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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 ↓

Steamed Tapioca Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Combine the tapioca and milk in a stewpan and cook slowly over low heat.

  2. Once cooked, add the yolks of the eggs and the whipped egg whites, and mix well.

  3. Add sugar to taste and steam very slowly for several hours.

Serve

  1. Serve with mousseline sauce.

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. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  2. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + eggtop 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

French tapioca
Swells in the hot milk and thickens the pudding into a soft, set body.
Milk
Provides the liquid that the tapioca absorbs and gives the pudding its creamy base.
Eggs
Yolks enrich and set the custard, while whipped whites add lightness and airy texture.

The step that matters

Steaming very slowly for several hours. Gentle, prolonged heat lets the tapioca soften fully and the egg proteins set evenly without curdling or becoming rubbery.

“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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