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Dessert

Sago Pudding

A steamed pudding made from sago, milk, eggs, and sugar, baked until puffed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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

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.

Make the sago base

  1. Scald the milk in a double boiler.

  2. Wash and add the sago and salt to the milk; cook until transparent, stirring often to prevent lumping.

  3. Beat the eggs with the sugar in a separate bowl.

  4. Remove the sago from the stove and stir in the eggs and sugar.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a buttered pudding dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes, or until it puffs up.

  2. 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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the custard and help the pudding puff and hold its structure as it bakes.
Sago
Thickens the milk as its starch swells, giving the pudding body and a soft, tender texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the sago swells in and the eggs set into a custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and adds to its tender, custardy texture.

The step that matters

Stirring the sago while it cooks. Sago can clump and scorch on the bottom if left alone. Frequent stirring keeps the starch dispersed so it cooks evenly and turns smooth and transparent.

“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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