Skip to main content
Main

Saco Soup

A hot soup made with sago, stock, lemon juice, wine, eggs, cream, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Saco Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the sago thoroughly.

Make the soup

  1. Gradually add the sago to the stock and let it simmer gently until clear.

  2. Adjust seasoning if necessary.

Finish and serve

  1. Before serving, mix in the lemon juice and light wine, or the beaten eggs and cream.

  2. Serve very hot.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Lemon + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

  4. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  5. Wine + creamtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,887 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Sago
Thickens the stock as it cooks and turns clear, giving the soup its body.
Eggs
Thicken the soup gently when stirred in and add richness.
Cream
Adds richness and a softer, smoother mouthfeel to the soup.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the soup.

The step that matters

Adding the eggs and cream or the lemon and wine before serving. Eggs can curdle or scramble if they meet very hot liquid without care, so they are mixed in just before serving. Acidic ingredients can also change the texture of dairy and egg, so timing and gentle stirring matter.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (wine, egg, cream, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits about as well
  3. Raspberryfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against wine, egg, cream, 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.

More sago soup recipes

Creamy 4Chicken 3German 3 See all 82 →

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes