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Sago Milk
Soak a large table-spoonful of sago in water for an hour, then boil it in fresh water for two or three minutes. Pour the liquor off, and substitute for it a quart of new milk. Boil the sago gently till the milk is reduced to a pint. Sweeten, flavour, and serve. Time, about an hour to boil the sago with the milk. Probable cost, 5d. Sufficient for one person. (See also MILK SAGO.)
A one-person invalid dish of the sickroom tradition: sago simmered slowly in milk until the milk has halved and thickened. The whole method turns on gentle heat and patience rather than on any particular skill.
- SagoSago is starch extracted from the pith of the sago palm, sold as small hard pearls in South and Southeast Asian groceries. Tapioca pearls of the same size behave almost identically and are far easier to find; do not substitute the large bubble-tea pearls, which are a different product.
- Why the water is thrown awayThe soak and the brief boil in fresh water wash off loose surface starch. Pouring that liquor away probably helps keep the finished milk from turning gluey.
- New milk"New milk" means fresh whole milk straight from the dairy, unskimmed and not soured. Ordinary whole milk is the direct equivalent; skimmed milk will reduce but the result is thin and chalky.
- A quart reduced to a pintIn an English book of this period a quart is 40 fl oz, about 1.1 litres, reducing to roughly 570 ml. If you use US measures, a quart is 32 fl oz reducing to 16 fl oz. Either way you are halving the volume.
- Gentle really means gentleMilk reducing over an hour will catch and scorch on a thin pan. Use a heavy-bottomed saucepan on the lowest workable heat, stir every few minutes, and scrape the base rather than just the surface. A double boiler is slower but safe.
- The hourAn hour is realistic for reduction, not for cooking the sago itself, which turns translucent and soft long before that. If the pearls are done and the milk is still thin, keep going at low heat until it coats a spoon.
- Sweeten and flavourThe book leaves this open because it was a sickroom dish adjusted to the patient: sugar to taste, with nutmeg, cinnamon, lemon zest, vanilla, or a spoonful of brandy or sherry. Add sugar toward the end, since it accelerates scorching.
- YieldA pint for one person is a Victorian portion. As a modern dessert or breakfast it comfortably serves two, and it thickens considerably as it cools.
Sago reached British kitchens through the East India trade, and by the nineteenth century it sat alongside arrowroot, tapioca and semolina in the small group of bland, easily digested starches prescribed for invalids, infants and convalescents. Sago milk was less a dessert than a nourishment: milk and starch in a form a weak stomach could take. The costing of fivepence, and the flat note that it is "sufficient for one person", both point to its use as a single ration carried up to a sickroom. The instruction to sweeten and flavour without specifying how is characteristic of such recipes, where the cook was expected to suit the invalid's appetite rather than a table of guests.