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Dessert

Cream Sago Pudding

A sweet pudding made from sago, milk, sugar, eggs, and vanilla, served hot or cold with cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Cream Sago Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sago

  1. Soak the sago in water for 15 minutes, then drain.

Cook the pudding

  1. Add the sago to 1 quart of boiling milk and cook until the grains are clear.

  2. Beat the egg yolks with 3 tablespoons of milk and 1 cup of sugar.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in the egg yolk mixture.

  4. Fold in the beaten egg whites.

  5. Add a pinch of salt and vanilla flavoring.

Serve

  1. Serve hot or cold with cream.

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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

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

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Milk
Forms the liquid base in which the sago cooks and the custard sets.
Sago
Its starch swells and thickens the milk as the grains turn clear.
Eggs
Yolks thicken and enrich the pudding, while beaten whites add lightness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and softens the texture of the pudding.

The step that matters

Remove from heat and stir in the egg yolk mixture. Adding egg yolks to a very hot mixture can scramble them. Taking the pan off the heat first lets the yolks thicken the pudding gently and smoothly.

“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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