Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Sago Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Pick, wash, and dry half a pound of currants.
Prepare a teaspoonful of powdered cinnamon, a half teaspoonful of powdered mace, and a beaten nutmeg.
Have ready six tablespoonfuls of sago, picked clean, and soak them for two hours in cold water.
Make the pudding
Boil the sago in a quart of milk until quite soft.
Stir alternately into the milk, a quarter pound of butter, and six ounces of powdered sugar, and set aside to cool.
Beat eight eggs until quite light, then stir them gradually into the milk, sago, and the mixture.
Add the spices, and lastly the currants, having dredged them well with flour to prevent sinking.
Stir the whole very hard, put it into a buttered dish, and bake it for three quarters of an hour.
Serve
Eat it cold.
Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)
Counts 5 of 6 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.
What these numbers assume: 5 portions
| Ingredient | Portion assumed | kcal |
|---|---|---|
| Milk | 1 cup (244ml) whole | 149 |
| Butter | 1 tbsp (14g) | 102 |
| Egg | 1 large egg (50g) | 78 |
| Grape | 1/2 cup (76g) | 62 |
| Sugar | 1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated | 49 |
| Mace | not in our table | 0 |
One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.
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. See the original page.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
-
Milk + teatop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together738 recipes
Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
-
Currant + macetop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,791 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
-
Currant + milktop 16% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together5,475 recipes
Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
-
Currant + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,856 recipes
Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Eggs
- Beaten eggs set the pudding and give it a light, custard-like structure as they cook.
- Sago
- Softened in milk, sago thickens the mixture and gives the pudding its body.
- Butter
- Adds richness and a tender texture to the pudding.
- Powdered sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps balance the richness of the butter and eggs.
- Currants
- Add fruitiness and chew; dusting them with flour helps keep them suspended in the batter.
The step that matters
Dredge the currants with flour before adding them. Flour-coated currants grip the batter and are less likely to sink to the bottom while the pudding bakes and sets.
Swap the mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, currant, milk, butter, tea, egg):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Nutmegfits better
- Gingerfits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, currant, milk, butter, tea, egg. 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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