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Prune Soup

A sweet soup made with sago, prunes, raisins, sugar, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,481 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Prune Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sago

  1. Soak the sago in enough water to cover for 1 hour.

  2. Cook the sago in a double boiler with 1 quart of water until clear.

Cook the fruit

  1. Soak the prunes and raisins in ½ cup of cold water.

  2. Cook the prunes and raisins in the soaking water.

Combine and serve

  1. Add the cooked prunes and raisins to the sago along with the sugar and fruit juice.

  2. Strain the soup.

  3. Serve it with the whole stoned fruit.

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. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Raisin + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,742 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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
Thickens the soup as its starch swells and turns the liquid clear and smooth.
Prunes
Provide the main fruit flavour and body as they soften and release their juices.
Raisins
Add sweetness and a soft, chewy texture as they plump in the cooking liquid.
Lemon juice or other tart juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweet, rich flavour of the dried fruit.

The step that matters

Cook the sago until clear. Sago must be cooked fully in the double boiler, since its starch only thickens and turns clear once it has gelatinised; undercooked sago stays cloudy and gritty.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, sugar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, sugar. 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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