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Dessert

Sago Pudding

A sweet pudding made from sago, milk, butter, eggs, and sugar, optionally flavored with rose water.

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

Prepare

  1. Wash the sago in three or four waters.

Make the pudding

  1. Combine the sago and milk in a pot and boil until thick, stirring carefully.

  2. Remove from heat and stir in the butter until melted.

  3. Allow to cool, then add the beaten eggs and sugar, mixing well.

  4. If desired, add rose water to taste.

Finish and serve

  1. Bake in a pastry shell or serve as is.

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 + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + sugartop 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

Sago
Forms the body of the pudding as its starch thickens into a soft, set mass when boiled.
Milk
Cooks with the sago to make a thick, creamy base for the pudding.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, tender mouthfeel to the thickened mixture.
Eggs
Add structure and help the pudding set as it bakes or chills.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the richness of the butter and eggs.

The step that matters

Boiling the sago and milk until thick. Sago must be cooked long enough for its starch to gelatinize fully; stirring keeps it from scorching on the bottom of the pot and sticking together in lumps.

“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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