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Soup

Sago Soup

A soup made from pearl sago simmered in gravy stock, optionally flavored with Harvey's sauce, cayenne, lemon, sugar, sherry, cream, or arrowroot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Sago Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the sago in several waters to remove dirt.

  2. Combine the sago with the gravy stock in a pot.

Cook

  1. Let it stew gently for 30 to 45 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent burning.

  2. For a thicker soup, add ¼ ounce more sago for each pint of liquid.

Season and finish

  1. Optional: Add Harvey's sauce, cayenne, lemon juice, sugar, and sherry for flavor.

  2. For a simple version, substitute beef broth for gravy stock.

  3. To make white soup, mix cream with arrowroot or equal parts thick cream and new milk.

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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Lemon + arrowroottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together553 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Sauce + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sauce + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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 swells and softens during stewing.
Gravy stock
Forms the liquid base that carries the soup's savory flavor.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, mellow texture to the white soup version.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the savory stock and tart lemon.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the soup.

The step that matters

Stirring while the sago stews. Sago settles and sticks to the bottom of the pot as it cooks, so stirring occasionally prevents scorching and keeps the starch evenly dispersed as it thickens the soup.

Swap the arrowroot

The recipe marks arrowroot as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sauce, pepper, lemon, sugar, sherry, cream, milk):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Arrowrootthe original
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Spinachfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, pepper, lemon, sugar, sherry, cream, milk. 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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