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Sago Soup

Sago soup made with sago, milk, bone stock, leek, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Leek and pepper work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 965 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Sago Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the sago in cold water.

Cook the soup

  1. Boil the leek in the stock for 10 minutes.

  2. Remove the leek and stir in the sago.

  3. Continue stirring until the sago is transparent and the stock is thick.

  4. Pour in the milk and bring to a boil.

  5. Season with salt and pepper, and serve.

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. Leek + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together965 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Milk + leektop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together200 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

  3. Milk + peppertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together26,984 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sago
Thickens the soup as its starch swells and gelatinizes in the hot stock.
Bone stock
Forms the liquid base and carries the main savory flavor of the soup.
Milk
Adds richness and a smoother, creamier body to the finished soup.
Leek
Flavors the stock with a mild, sweet onion-like aroma before it is removed.

The step that matters

Stirring in the sago. Sago can clump and stick to the bottom of the pot if it is not stirred as it goes in. Constant stirring keeps the grains separate and heats them evenly. Cooking until the grains turn transparent shows the starch has fully swelled and thickened the stock.

Swap the leek

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Leekthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, pepper. 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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