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Soup

Tapioca Cream

A creamy soup made with tapioca, eggs, and stock, simmered and served hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Tapioca Cream

Why it works: Egg and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 24% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 42,166 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Tapioca Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the tapioca

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

  2. Gradually stir in 1 oz of tapioca.

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

Finish the soup

  1. In a bowl, combine the yolks of 2 eggs with ½ cup of cream or milk and stir gently.

  2. Strain the mixture into another bowl.

  3. Slowly add the boiling stock to the egg mixture, stirring continuously to prevent curdling.

  4. Add salt to taste and return the mixture to the saucepan.

  5. Heat for 3 minutes, stirring constantly, without allowing it to boil.

  6. Serve hot in a 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. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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 and thickens the stock as it simmers, giving the soup body and a clear, glossy texture.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the soup, adding richness and a smooth, velvety body when heated gently.
Cream or milk
Adds fat and richness, softening the flavour and smoothing the texture of the soup.

The step that matters

Adding the boiling stock to the egg mixture. Pouring hot stock in too quickly can scramble the egg yolks and cause curdling. Adding it slowly while stirring gradually warms the yolks so they blend smoothly. Heating must then stay below a boil, since boiling can also curdle the eggs.

“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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