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Dessert

Sago Pudding

A steamed pudding made from sago, milk, eggs, and sugar, baked until puffed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the sago custard

  1. Scald the milk in a double boiler.

  2. Wash the sago.

  3. Add the sago and salt to the milk and cook until transparent, stirring often to prevent lumping.

  4. Beat the eggs with the sugar in a separate bowl.

  5. Remove the sago mixture from the stove.

  6. Add the beaten eggs and sugar to the sago mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a buttered pudding dish.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes, or until it puffs up.

  3. Serve hot or cold, with cream.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Eggs
Bind the pudding and help it set and puff as it bakes.
Sago
Thickens the milk as it cooks, giving the pudding its body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the sago swells in and the custard is made from.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and adds to its tender texture.

The step that matters

Stirring the sago while it cooks. Sago starch clumps and sticks to the pan when it hits hot milk. Stirring often spreads the starch evenly and keeps it smooth until the grains turn 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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