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
Ingredients
Directions
Make the custard
Combine hot milk, tapioca, and salt in a double boiler.
Cook for 15 minutes, stirring frequently.
Beat together egg yolk and sugar in a separate bowl.
After 15 minutes, stir the egg yolk mixture into the milk and tapioca.
Continue cooking until the mixture thickens like custard.
Finish and serve
Pour into a dish and fold in the well-beaten egg white until no white is visible.
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).
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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
- Minute tapioca
- Swells in hot milk and thickens the cream as it cooks.
- Egg yolk
- Enriches the cream and thickens it further as it cooks with the milk.
- Egg white
- Folded in at the end to lighten the cream with a little airy texture.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cream and softens the flavor of the egg yolk.
The step that matters
Stir the egg yolk mixture into the hot milk. Adding the yolk mixture gradually while stirring keeps it from scrambling. Egg proteins set at higher heat, so the cream can curdle if the yolks are added carelessly or the heat is too high.
“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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