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Savoury Sago Soup

A savory soup made with sago, beef tea, cream, and egg yolks.

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 ↓

Savoury Sago Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the sago

  1. Put the sago in a pan with the cold water and stew gently until tender.

  2. Add 1 pint of boiling beef-tea and cook together for a few minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove from heat and stir in the cream.

  2. Beat the egg yolks well and mix them in 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. Beef + teatop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together417 recipes

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

  2. Tea + creamtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together463 recipes

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

  3. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Beef + creamtop 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).

Egg and cream 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

Sago
Starch that swells and softens as it cooks, giving the soup body and a light, tender texture.
Beef-tea
Savoury liquid base that carries the flavour of the whole soup.
Egg yolks
Enrich the soup and thicken it gently with heat, adding richness and a smoother texture.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, softening the savoury flavour and giving a smooth mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Mixing in the egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat, but if the soup is boiling when they go in, they can scramble into small lumps. Mix them in off the heat, after the soup has cooled slightly.

“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.

More sago soup recipes

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