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Baked Sago Pudding
Wash 3 tablespoonfuls of sago, and soak it for one hour in 1/2 pint of cold water. Meantime put 1 1/2 pints of milk into a saucepan with a little lemon rind, 1 inch of stick cinnamon, or 1 ounce of blanched and pounded almonds, and let it simmer gently till it is pleasantly flavored. Strain and sweeten; mix with it the soaked sago drained from the water, and simmer gently, stirring frequently till the preparation is thick. Let it cool, then add 2 well-beaten eggs, and a slice of fresh butter, and beat it again for a few minutes. Pour it into a buttered pie-dish, and bake until the surface is brightly browned. Serve with wine sauce. If a superior pudding is required, 4 eggs may be used instead of 2, and the dish may be lined with puff paste before the sago is poured into it. Time to bake the pudding from three-quarters of an hour to an hour. Farina and tapioca are also made as the above.
A Victorian milk-and-starch pudding that behaves like a loose baked custard. The only real technique point is the order of operations: the sago is cooked through on the stovetop first, and the eggs go in only once the mixture has cooled.
- Sago, and what to buySago is starch extracted from the pith of tropical palms, sold as small hard pearls. Ordinary small pearl tapioca substitutes directly, as the recipe itself notes; do not use instant or minute tapioca, which needs no soaking and will turn to paste.
- The measuresBy US measure, half a pint of cold water is 1 cup and 1 1/2 pints of milk is 3 cups; if the book's pints are imperial, read 1 1/4 cups and 3 3/4 cups. Three tablespoons of sago in that quantity of milk gives a soft, custardy set rather than a stiff one.
- Sweetening is left to you"Strain and sweeten" gives no quantity. About 1/3 cup of sugar suits the amount of milk here; more if the wine sauce is to be omitted.
- Oven heatBake at 325-350F. The finish wanted is a browned surface over a set but still trembling centre, and a hotter oven will curdle the egg before the top colours.
- Cool before the eggsThe instruction to let the thickened sago cool is the hinge of the recipe. Beaten eggs stirred into a near-boiling starch base will scramble in threads that no amount of beating will smooth out.
- Flavouring the milkSteep the lemon rind, cinnamon stick or pounded almonds in the milk over low heat for 10-15 minutes, then strain. Use sweet almonds only; ground almonds from a packet work, though they give less perfume than freshly blanched and pounded ones.
- "A slice of fresh butter"Read this as roughly 1 tablespoon of unsalted butter, stirred in while the pudding is still warm enough to melt it.
- Timing and yieldThree-quarters of an hour to an hour holds true in a modern oven at the temperature above. It fits comfortably in a 1 1/2-quart dish and serves about four to six.
- The puff paste liningIf lining the dish, blind-bake the pastry before filling. An unbaked base under a wet pudding mixture for an hour will not crisp.
Sago reached British and American kitchens through the East Indies trade, and by the nineteenth century it sat alongside tapioca, arrowroot and semolina as one of the cheap starches that turned a quart of milk into a family pudding. Such puddings had a double reputation: nursery food and invalid food, light enough to be recommended for the sick, which is why so many books give the plain version and then, as here, a "superior" variation with extra eggs and a pastry lining for when the dish went to the dining table instead of the sickroom. The suggestion to flavour with lemon rind, cinnamon or pounded almonds is standard for the period, when a milk pudding's character came entirely from what was steeped in the milk. Wine sauce -- a sweetened, thickened sauce flavoured with sherry or madeira -- was the usual accompaniment for baked puddings of this class.