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Grape Soup

A hot soup made with sago, raisins, cinnamon, grape juice, water, sugar, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and raisin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,390 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Grape Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a pot, combine 6 cups of hot water and slowly stir in ½ cup of sago.

  2. Add the cinnamon stick and seeded raisins.

  3. Boil for 30 minutes, stirring frequently to prevent lumps.

  4. Stir in 2 cups of grape juice, along with sugar and salt to taste.

  5. Let it boil, then serve.

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. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Cinnamon + grapetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,164 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  3. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Raisin + grapetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together218 recipes

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

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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 thickens the soup as it cooks, giving it body.
Grape juice
Provides the main flavor and sweetness of the soup.
Seeded raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness as they soften in the liquid.

The step that matters

Stirring the sago while it boils. Sago granules can clump and form lumps if they are not stirred in slowly and stirred often while cooking. Frequent stirring keeps the starch dispersed so it thickens the liquid evenly.

Swap the grape

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Grapethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cinnamon, 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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