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Dessert

Sago Pudding

A sweet pudding made from sago, milk, cinnamon, biscuits, eggs, sherry, baked in a buttered mold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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

Make the sago base

  1. Boil sago in milk with cinnamon for 30 minutes.

  2. Pour the mixture into a bowl and cover the bowl until cool.

Assemble the pudding

  1. Bruise sponge biscuits and add the bruised biscuits to the sago mixture.

  2. Incorporate beaten egg yolks, then whisk in the egg whites.

  3. Mix in sherry until smooth.

  4. Pour the mixture into a buttered mold.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil the mold for 1 hour.

  2. Let the pudding stand, then turn out the pudding onto a plate.

  3. Serve with wine sauce.

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. Cinnamon + biscuittop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together312 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Sherry + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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 it cooks, giving the pudding its body and a soft, set texture.
Egg yolks
Enrich the custard and help bind the pudding while it sets.
Egg whites
Whisked in to add lightness and help the pudding rise and hold a delicate texture.
Sponge biscuits
Absorb liquid and soften, adding structure and a tender crumb to the pudding.
Sherry
Adds aroma and a gently sweet, fruity flavour.

The step that matters

Cooling the sago mixture before adding the eggs. If the sago base is still hot when the beaten egg yolks go in, they can scramble instead of blending smoothly, leaving the pudding grainy and uneven in texture.

Swap the cinnamon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, biscuit, egg, sherry, butter, wine, sauce):

  1. Capersfits about as well
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Cinnamonthe original
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, biscuit, egg, sherry, butter, wine, sauce. 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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