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Sauce

Sago Sauce

A clear sauce made from sago, water, sherry, lemon juice, and sugar, finished with lemon rind.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sherry and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,273 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Sago Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Add the sago and lemon rind to the boiling water.

  2. Simmer gently until the sago is completely clear.

  3. Remove the lemon rind before serving.

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. Sherry + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,273 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Sherry + sugartop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,141 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Large sago
Starch that thickens the liquid and turns clear and slightly gel-like as it cooks.
Sherry
Adds wine flavour and aroma to the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness and flavour.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the acidity.
Lemon rind
Infuses aromatic lemon oils into the liquid while it simmers.

The step that matters

Simmer gently until the sago is completely clear. Sago starch must be fully cooked to swell and turn clear; the clear look shows the granules have gelatinized. Boiling too hard can make the grains break down or stick together, so a gentle simmer gives an even, smooth result.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Pineapplefits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sherry, sugar. 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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