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Sago Soup

A simple soup made with sago, stock, mushroom ketchup, Harvey or Reading sauce, pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Ketchup and sauce 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

Prepare and simmer

  1. Wash the sago in warm water.

  2. Add the sago to the stock and let it simmer until dissolved.

Season and serve

  1. Stir in the mushroom ketchup and Harvey or Reading sauce for each quart of soup.

  2. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt to taste.

  3. Serve hot.

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. Ketchup + saucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

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

  3. Mushroom + ketchuptop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Mushroom + saucetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,480 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Ketchup + peppertop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,207 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
Its starch swells and dissolves in hot stock, thickening the soup and giving it body.
Clear stock
Forms the liquid base of the soup and carries the flavour.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds concentrated savoury, umami depth to the stock.
Harvey or reading sauce
Adds tangy, savoury depth that rounds out the seasoning.

The step that matters

Simmer the sago until dissolved. Sago starch needs sustained heat to swell and break down fully. If it is underdone, the soup stays grainy and cloudy instead of smooth and clear.

“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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