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Sago Pudding

A sweet pudding made from sago, milk, cream, eggs, and sugar, baked in a pastry-lined dish.

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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sago

  1. Wash and pick the sago clean.

  2. Boil the sago in water, then drain.

Make the pudding

  1. Add new milk, salt, and cinnamon to the sago, and boil until thick.

  2. Let it cool, then stir in cream and beaten eggs (reserve 2 whites).

  3. Add sugar to taste and pour into a pastry-lined dish.

  4. Bake until set.

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 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
Starch that thickens the milk and cream into a soft, set custard.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set when baked.
New milk
Forms the liquid base that the sago swells and thickens in.
Cream
Adds richness and a smoother, softer texture.

The step that matters

Let it cool, then stir in the eggs. Adding beaten eggs to a very hot mixture can scramble them into lumps. Cooling the thickened sago first lets the eggs blend in smoothly so the pudding sets evenly.

Swap the cinnamon

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

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Cinnamonthe original
  3. Gingerfits less well
  4. Peppermintfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, cream, egg, 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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