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 ↓
Tapioca Cream Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Soak the tapioca in water for four hours, then drain.
Make the pudding
In a pot, combine the soaked tapioca and milk, and bring to a boil over medium heat.
Stir in the egg yolks and a little salt, and continue stirring until it begins to thicken.
Add flavoring to taste.
Finish
Whip the egg whites to make a frosting and spread it over the top of the pudding.
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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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Tapioca
- Starch that thickens the milk as it cooks, giving the pudding its body.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base that the tapioca swells in and thickens into custard.
- Egg yolks
- Add richness and help thicken the pudding as it heats.
- Egg whites
- Whip into a light frosting that covers the top of the pudding.
The step that matters
Stirring in the egg yolks. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if the pudding is too hot or stirred too little. Keep stirring constantly while it thickens so the yolks blend in smoothly.
“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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