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Dessert

A Sago Pudding

A dessert made from boiled sago, cinnamon, red wine, sugar, eggs, crumbed loaf, and garnished with almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,514 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

A Sago Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the sago

  1. Boil sago in water with cinnamon until soft and thick.

  2. Remove the sago from heat.

  3. Let it cool completely.

Make the custard

  1. Grate the crumb of the loaf.

  2. Pour the red wine and sugar over the grated crumb.

  3. Beat in the eggs for 15 minutes.

  4. Pour the mixture into a dish with a pastry edge.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until set.

  2. Garnish with long-cut almonds before serving.

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. Cinnamon + almondtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  4. Cinnamon + red winetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together312 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

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
Thickens as it cooks and gives the pudding its soft, tender body.
Eggs
Set when baked, binding the mixture into a firm, sliceable custard.
Loaf crumb
Soaks up the wine and sugar, adding bulk and a soft, absorbent texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and adds to its flavour.
Red wine
Adds acidity, depth of flavour and moisture to the crumb.

The step that matters

Let the sago cool completely. Adding hot sago to the eggs would partly cook them and cause uneven setting, so the mixture must be cool before baking to set smoothly.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Walnutfits less well
  4. Beansfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against cinnamon, red wine, sugar, egg. 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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