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Soup

Tapioca Cream

A clear soup of white stock thickened with tapioca, egg yolks, and cream.

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.

  2. Bring the stock to a boil over medium heat.

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

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

Enrich with eggs

  1. In a bowl, combine the yolks of 2 eggs with 2 tablespoons of cream or milk.

  2. Stir the mixture and strain it into another bowl.

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

  4. Slowly add 2-3 tablespoons of the warm stock to the egg mixture, stirring constantly to prevent curdling.

  5. Add this mixture back to the saucepan and stir well.

Season and serve

  1. Season with pepper and salt to taste.

  2. Warm the soup gently before serving, ensuring it does not boil.

  3. 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

Tapioca
Thickens the stock as it cooks, giving the soup a light, smooth body.
Eggs
Yolks enrich and thicken the soup, adding richness and a silky texture.
Cream or milk
Adds moisture and richness, mellowing the egg yolks as they join the soup.

The step that matters

Adding the egg mixture to the hot stock. Egg yolks thicken when heated, so they can curdle if they meet hot liquid directly. Slowly adding warm stock while stirring constantly tempers the yolks, and keeping the soup below a boil afterward prevents curdling.

“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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