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Chicken and Sago Broth

A broth made with chicken stock, sago, milk, eggs, parsley, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Chicken and Sago Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the sago in enough cold water to cover it for 4 hours.

  2. Strain and skim the chicken broth, then add the soaked sago.

Cook the sago

  1. Heat the mixture in a frying kettle until boiling, ensuring the sago dissolves.

Make the custard

  1. In a separate vessel, heat the milk and pour it scalding hot over the egg yolks.

  2. Add a pinch of baking soda to the yolk mixture, then combine it with the sago broth.

Finish

  1. Season, stir for 5 minutes, then fold in the frothed egg whites and parsley 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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Chicken + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,389 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  3. Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  4. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  5. Chicken + parsleytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,314 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

German sago
Swells and thickens the broth as its starch cooks, giving the soup body.
Eggs
Yolks enrich and thicken the soup, while frothed whites add lightness when folded in.
Milk
Adds richness and a creamy texture to the broth.
Chicken broth
Forms the savoury liquid base that carries the other ingredients.

The step that matters

Pouring the scalding milk over the egg yolks. Egg yolk proteins set when heated, so hot liquid poured in too fast or without stirring can scramble the yolks and leave lumps. Pouring slowly while whisking gradually warms the yolks so they blend smoothly into the soup.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, milk, egg, pepper):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, milk, egg, pepper. 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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