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Dessert

Sago Pudding

A sweet pudding made with sago, milk, eggs, butter, currants, sugar, nutmeg, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Sago Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sago

  1. Pick and wash the sago.

  2. Cover the sago with warm water.

  3. Let it soak in a warm place for 3 hours.

Prepare the currants

  1. Wash the currants.

  2. Pick the currants.

  3. Dry the currants.

  4. Sift flour over the currants.

Make the pudding

  1. Boil the sago in the milk until fully incorporated.

  2. Add the butter.

  3. Let it cool.

  4. Beat the eggs.

  5. Stir the eggs into the milk mixture.

  6. Add sugar.

  7. Add currants.

  8. Add spices.

  9. Butter a deep dish.

  10. Pour the mixture into the dish.

  11. Bake.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Currant + cinnamontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

Sugar and cinnamon 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
Thickens the milk as it cooks, giving the pudding its body.
Eggs
Set when baked, giving the pudding structure and a custard-like texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the sago cooks in and the eggs set into.
Butter
Adds richness and a soft, tender mouthfeel to the pudding.
Currants
Add pockets of concentrated sweetness and chew throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Let it cool before adding the eggs. Eggs added to very hot milk can scramble instead of blending smoothly. Cooling the mixture first lets the eggs combine evenly and set into a smooth custard when baked.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, egg, sugar, butter, nutmeg, cinnamon):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, sugar, butter, nutmeg, cinnamon. 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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