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Stewed Tapioca and Apples

A stew of tapioca and apples flavored with cloves and lemon peel, sweetened with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and clove are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,774 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Stewed Tapioca and Apples

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak 2 tablespoons of tapioca in 1 pint of water for 12 hours, preferably overnight.

  2. Peel, quarter, and core the 6 apples.

  3. Add 4 cloves for flavor.

  4. Wash the lemon and peel half of it thinly, avoiding the white part.

Make the tapioca

  1. In a large saucepan, combine the soaked tapioca, lemon peel, and 2 tablespoons of sugar.

  2. Heat the saucepan over medium heat, stirring until it boils, ensuring nothing sticks to the bottom.

  3. Boil for 10 minutes until the tapioca becomes clear.

Stew and serve

  1. Add the apples to the saucepan, arranging them at the bottom to be covered by the tapioca.

  2. Reduce heat and let the apples stew gently for 15 to 30 minutes, depending on their size.

  3. Avoid boiling to prevent the apples from breaking.

  4. Once tender, remove the apples and place them on a dish.

  5. Pour the tapioca over the apples. Optionally, stir in ½ teaspoon of cochineal to color the 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. Apple + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Clove + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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 liquid as it cooks and turns clear, forming the sauce.
Apples
Provide the main fruit body that becomes tender while stewing gently.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to the tapioca sauce.

The step that matters

Keep the stew at a gentle simmer. Boiling the apples vigorously makes them break apart, so they should stew gently until tender while the tapioca stays covered around them.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, clove, sugar):

  1. Quincefits better
  2. Pearfits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, clove, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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