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Lenten Soup

A soup made from sago, water, salt, cayenne, nutmeg, sugar, and red wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Lenten Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the sago in cold water.

  2. In a pot, combine sago, 3 quarts of cold water, salt, cayenne, and nutmeg.

Cook the soup

  1. Cook slowly, stirring frequently, until the sago is transparent, adding more water if needed.

  2. Once transparent, add sugar and enough boiling water to make 3 quarts of soup.

  3. Stir in the claret or red wine until the sugar dissolves.

Serve

  1. Serve hot or chill and serve cold.

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. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Pepper + red winetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,075 recipes

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

  3. Nutmeg + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together23,364 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  4. Nutmeg + red winetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together370 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Sugar + red winetop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together864 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Nutmeg and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 23,364 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 soup as its starch cooks and turns transparent.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the wine and spices.
Claret or red wine
Adds acidity, colour and a fruity, wine-based flavour.

The step that matters

Cooking the sago until transparent. Sago must cook long enough for its starch granules to swell and turn clear; undercooked sago stays chalky and gives a grainy texture. Stirring keeps the grains from sticking and scorching on the bottom of the pot.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Clovefits better
  2. Rosemaryfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, sugar, red wine. 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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