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Dessert

Sago Pudding

A baked pudding made with sago, milk, eggs, raisins, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Sago Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the sago

  1. Rinse the sago in cold water.

  2. In a pot, combine the rinsed sago with 1 quart of milk and boil until it thickens like starch.

Mix the pudding

  1. Remove from heat and mix in the remaining ingredients, beating the eggs well.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 45 minutes.

  2. Add the sugar 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. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  2. Nutmeg + raisintop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  3. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + raisintop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,742 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Milk + raisintop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sago
Thickens the milk as its starch swells and gelatinizes when boiled.
Eggs
Bind the pudding and help it set as they cook in the oven.
Sweet milk
Forms the liquid base that the sago thickens and the eggs set in.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the milk and eggs.

The step that matters

Mixing the eggs off the heat. Eggs added to a very hot starch mixture can scramble or cook unevenly. Removing the pot from heat first and beating the eggs well lets them blend smoothly, so the custard sets evenly in the oven.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, egg, nutmeg, raisin, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Coconutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, nutmeg, raisin, 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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