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Sago Soup

A soup made with sago, brown gravy, soy sauce, ketchup, red wine, cream, and mace.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and ketchup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,099 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Sago Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Heat the gravy soup in a pot.

  2. Add the sago and stir until it thickens to the consistency of pea soup.

Season

  1. Season with soy sauce and ketchup.

  2. For a white version, omit soy and ketchup, and add white wine, cream, and mace instead.

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. Sauce + ketchuptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Ketchup + creamtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together279 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Cream + macetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,009 recipes
  5. Red wine + macetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together381 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sago
Starch that swells and gelatinises as it heats, thickening the soup to a smooth body.
Clear brown gravy soup
Forms the savoury liquid base that the sago thickens.
Soy sauce
Adds salty, savoury depth to the soup's flavour.
Ketchup
Adds sweetness and acidity that rounds out the savoury base.
Red wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the soup.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, giving the white version a softer, creamier texture.

The step that matters

Stirring the sago into the hot soup. Sago starch swells and gelatinises as it heats, so it can clump or scorch if added without constant stirring. Stirring keeps it dispersed and gives an even, smooth thickening.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sauce, ketchup, red wine, cream):

  1. Celeryfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, ketchup, red wine, cream. 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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