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Dessert

Sago Pudding

A sweet pudding made from sago, milk, cinnamon, butter, eggs, flour, white wine, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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

Make the pudding

  1. Wash the sago in several warm waters.

  2. Boil the sago with the milk and cinnamon, stirring often until thick.

  3. Pour the mixture into a pan and beat in the butter.

  4. Add the egg yolks, beaten egg whites, flour, white wine, and sugar, then mix well.

  5. Boil the mixture until cooked through.

Serve

  1. Serve with a sweet sauce.

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. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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
Forms the starchy body of the pudding as it thickens with liquid and heat.
Egg yolks
Enrich the pudding and help it set into a tender, custard-like texture.
Egg whites
Add airy lift and structure as they set during cooking.
Butter
Adds richness and a soft, smooth mouthfeel.
Flour
Helps thicken the mixture and give it body.
Milk
Provides the liquid that the sago swells and cooks in.

The step that matters

Boil the sago with the milk until thick. Sago must be stirred often so its starch doesn't settle and scorch on the bottom of the pan, and it needs to cook fully to lose its raw, chalky centre. Stopping too early leaves a grainy, unset texture.

Swap the cinnamon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, butter, egg, flour, white wine, sugar):

  1. Cinnamonthe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits less well
  4. Capersfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, egg, flour, white wine, 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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