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Sago Soup

A soup made with sago, beef 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 sago base

  1. Heat 2 quarts of beef broth to boiling.

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

  3. Transfer the kettle to a double boiler.

  4. Cook for 30 minutes.

  5. Skim off any foam.

Prepare the enriched sago

  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 slowly until tender.

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

Combine and serve

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

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, thickening the soup and giving it a soft, slippery body.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the cream mixture, adding richness and a smooth texture.
Boiling cream
Adds fat and richness, softening the flavor and body of the soup.
Beef broth
Forms the flavorful liquid base that the sago cooks in.

The step that matters

Combining the egg yolk mixture with the boiling stock. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if they meet very hot liquid too quickly. Adding the mixture slowly and carefully, with the stock kept from boiling hard, helps keep the soup smooth.

“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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