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Sago Soup

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

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.

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

Season and finish

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

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

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

  4. 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
Swells and thickens the stock as it stews, giving the soup its body.
Gravy-stock
Forms the savory liquid base that the sago cooks in.
Sherry
Adds a sweet, aromatic depth to the finished soup.
Arrowroot
Thickens the cream for the white soup version, giving a smooth texture.

The step that matters

Stirring while the sago stews. Starch granules settle and scorch on the bottom of the pot if not stirred, which gives a burnt taste and sticky texture. Gentle, regular stirring keeps the starch suspended and the soup smooth.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Strawberryfits about as well
  4. Figfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, pepper, sugar, sherry, cream, arrowroot, 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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