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Sago Soup

A thick custard-like soup made with pearl sago, eggs, milk, and seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and milk 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 ↓

Sago Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the fat from your cold stock and strain it to remove sediment.

  2. Heat the stock to boiling.

  3. Wash the sago well and soak it in warm water for 30 minutes.

Cook the soup

  1. Add the soaked sago to the boiling stock and simmer for 25 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. In another pot, heat the milk and pour it over the eggs, stirring until it begins to thicken.

  2. Pour the egg mixture into a tureen.

  3. Season the mixture with salt and pepper.

  4. Add the boiling soup to the tureen.

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. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

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

Egg and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 50,580 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

Pearl sago
Swells as it cooks, thickening the soup and giving it a soft, chewy body.
Eggs
Thicken gently with heat when combined with warm milk, enriching the soup's texture.
Milk
Adds richness and creaminess, and helps the egg mixture set smoothly.

The step that matters

Adding the egg mixture to the soup. Eggs can curdle or scramble if they meet very hot liquid too quickly. Warming the milk gently and stirring until it just thickens keeps the custard smooth before it joins the soup.

“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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