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Dessert

Sago, or Tapioca Blanc Mange

A sweet milk pudding made with tapioca or sago, milk, cream, sugar, and almond extract.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Sago, or Tapioca Blanc Mange

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tapioca

  1. Wash the tapioca or sago in cold water and drain.

  2. Soak the tapioca or sago in 1 pint of cold milk for 3 to 4 hours.

Make the pudding

  1. Boil 1 pint of cream or rich milk.

  2. Pour the hot milk over the soaked tapioca or sago and beat thoroughly.

  3. Add 1 cup of sugar and stir well.

  4. Boil the mixture slowly for 15 minutes, stirring constantly.

  5. Add 1 teaspoon of almond extract and pour into molds.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Cream + almondtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  3. Milk + almondtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,800 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Tapioca or sago
Its starch thickens the milk as it cooks, giving the pudding its body.
Cold milk
Soaking in it softens the tapioca so it cooks evenly and becomes tender.
Cream or rich milk
Adds fat and richness, giving the pudding a smoother, creamier texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the finished pudding its flavour.

The step that matters

Boiling slowly while stirring constantly. Tapioca starch can settle and scorch on the bottom of the pan, and it thickens as it heats. Constant stirring over gentle heat keeps the mixture even and prevents lumps or burnt flavour.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Pistachiofits about as well
  4. Hazelnutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, cream, 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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