Why it works: Beef and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,759 recipes. Both carry 1-hexanal, which smells fruit. The science ↓
Tapioca Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Chop the beef suet as finely as possible.
Combine the chopped suet and tapioca in a pie dish, then pour the cold water over it.
Bake
Place the dish in a cool oven for 30 minutes.
Add the milk and mix thoroughly with the tapioca.
Return the dish to the oven and bake for about 1 hour.
Serve
Serve with custard in a glass jug or bowl, sweetened to taste.
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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Beef + milktop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,759 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Tapioca
- Starch that swells and thickens the pudding as it cooks in the liquid.
- Beef suet
- Hard animal fat that melts into the pudding, adding richness and body.
- Milk
- Adds creaminess and richness, and helps the pudding set softly as it bakes.
The step that matters
Add the milk and mix thoroughly with the tapioca. Tapioca starch settles quickly and clumps when left unmixed. Stirring the milk through evenly distributes the starch so it thickens smoothly rather than in lumps or patches.
“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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