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Dessert

Apple Sago

A sweet dessert made from cooked sago and apples, sweetened with sugar and flavored with lemon and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,598 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓

Apple Sago

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the sago and cook it in 1 ½ pints of water with the cinnamon added.

  2. Prepare the apples by peeling, coring, and cutting them into pieces.

  3. Cook the apples in just enough water to prevent burning until they are soft.

Make and set

  1. Rub the cooked apples through a sieve and mix them with the sago.

  2. Add sugar and lemon juice, then cook gently until the sago is soft.

  3. Pour the mixture into a wet mold and refrigerate until cold.

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. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  2. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 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
Swells as it cooks and, once cooled, sets the mixture into a firm, sliceable shape.
Apples
Provide the fruit pulp that gives the dessert its body, moisture and mild sweetness.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the sweetness of the apples and sugar.
Ground cinnamon
Adds warm aroma that complements the cooked apples.

The step that matters

Cook the apples in just enough water. Using only a little water keeps the apples from scorching while they soften, and it keeps the pulp thick enough to mix well with the sago and set properly.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Pearfits better
  3. Quincefits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, cinnamon, 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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