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Soup

Sago and Beef-tea

A soup of pearl sago cooked in water, mixed with boiling cream, beaten egg yolks, and beef tea.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and tea work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 417 recipes. Both carry 2-methyl-3-(methyldithio)furan, which smells thiamin, meat. The science ↓

Sago and Beef-tea

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sago

  1. Wash the sago thoroughly.

  2. Soak the sago in ½ pint of water.

  3. Stew the sago in the same water for 1 hour.

Finish and serve

  1. Mix in ½ pint of boiling cream and the beaten egg yolks.

  2. Combine the mixture with 1 pint of beef tea.

  3. Serve immediately to prevent curdling.

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 + teatop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together417 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methyl-3-(methyldithio)furan (thiamin, meat).

  2. Cream + teatop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together463 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Cream + beeftop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,128 recipes

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

  5. Egg + beeftop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 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

Pearl sago
Swells as it cooks, thickening the broth into a light, smooth body.
Boiling cream
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished liquid.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the mixture gently, giving it body and a custard-like smoothness.
Beef tea
Provides the savoury base flavour of the dish.

The step that matters

Combining the egg yolks and cream. Egg yolks can curdle when exposed to high heat. Adding the hot cream and yolks gently, then serving immediately, keeps the mixture smooth rather than grainy or separated.

“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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