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Sago and Tomato Soup

A tomato soup with sago, onions, and seasonings, served with bread dice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and 17,451 recipes mention both. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Sago and Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the soup

  1. Boil the tomatoes and onion until half cooked.

  2. Pour 1½ pints of boiling water over ½ cup of sago.

  3. Boil for 10 minutes.

  4. Add the sago mixture to the tomatoes.

  5. Add 1 quart of boiling water.

  6. Season with coarse sea salt, sugar, pepper, and cloves.

  7. Boil until the tomatoes are done.

  8. Add more boiling water and seasoning if too thick.

Serve

  1. Serve in a tureen.

  2. Sprinkle with bread dice.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together20,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Tomato + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together1,013 recipes

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Form the main body and tangy flavour of the soup as they break down.
Sago
Thickens the soup as its starch swells and gelatinises when boiled.
Onion
Adds savoury depth as it softens into the tomato base.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the tomatoes with gentle sweetness.
Cloves
Add a warm, aromatic spice note that flavours the soup.

The step that matters

Boil the sago mixture for 10 minutes. Sago starch only thickens fully once it has boiled long enough to swell and turn translucent. If it is undercooked, the grains stay hard and chalky and the soup will taste gritty and seem thin.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, sugar, pepper, clove, bread):

  1. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  2. Carrotbetter flavor fit
  3. Eggplantbetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, sugar, pepper, clove, bread. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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