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Dessert

Sago Pudding

A sweet pudding made from sago, raspberry and currant juice, sweetened with sugar and lemon, served with cream or milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Raspberry and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,109 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Sago Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak ½ pound of sago in hot water.

  2. Pour off the water and add ½ pint of raspberry juice and ½ pint of currant juice.

  3. Add sugar and lemon juice to taste.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil the mixture until it thickens, being careful not to let it burn.

  2. Serve with cream or milk.

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. Raspberry + lemontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,109 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

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

  3. Raspberry + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together366 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

  4. Raspberry + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,332 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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
Swells and thickens as it cooks, giving the pudding its body and soft, set texture.
Raspberry juice
Provides the main flavour and colour, along with liquid for the sago to cook in.
Currant juice
Adds tartness and fruity depth, and more liquid for the sago to cook in.

The step that matters

Boil until it thickens without burning. Sago thickens as its starch gelatinises in the hot juice. Heating too hard or leaving it unstirred can scorch the sugars and starch on the base of the pan, giving a burnt taste.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Blackberryfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raspberry, sugar, lemon, cream. 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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