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Sago Soup

A creamy soup of sago, broth, cream, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and veal are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,784 recipes. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓

Sago Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Bring 2 quarts of beef broth to a boil.

  2. Gradually sprinkle in ½ cup of sago and boil for 5 minutes.

  3. Transfer the pot to a double boiler.

  4. Let it sit for 30 minutes.

  5. Skim off any foam.

Prepare the sago and finish

  1. In a separate pot, wash ¼ pound of pearl sago until the water runs clear.

  2. Stew the sago in 1 quart of cold water or thick broth, heating it slowly until tender.

  3. Mix the cooked sago with 1 pint of boiling cream and 4 egg yolks.

  4. Carefully combine this mixture with 2 quarts of boiling veal or beef stock.

  5. Serve 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. Beef + vealtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  2. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Beef + creamtop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,128 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Cream + vealtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,202 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  5. Egg + vealtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,845 recipes

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

Cream and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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
Swells as it cooks and thickens the soup into a light, starchy body.
Heavy cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture to the finished soup.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the cream mixture, giving the soup body and a silky texture.
Beef broth
Forms the savory base that carries the flavor of the whole soup.

The step that matters

Combining the egg yolk and cream mixture with the boiling stock. Egg yolks scramble if they get too hot, so the cream and yolk mixture should be added carefully to the hot stock and combined gently to keep the soup smooth rather than curdled.

“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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