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Velvet Soup
Cook 1 tablespoonful of pearl tapioca or sago, previously soaked in cold water, in a quart of clear stock or bouillon. When the tapioca is cooked clear, beat the yolks of 3 eggs lightly, put them in the tureen, and pour the soup over, stirring until it becomes uniformly smooth and creamy; add a dash of nutmeg and paprika.
By using extract of beef, and cooking the sago or tapioca until clear, a very nourishing and quick soup may be made without stock.
A clear consommé thickened at the last moment with egg yolk — the "velvet" is the liaison, not cream. The whole dish hangs on the temperature of the stock when it meets the yolks.
- The hinge: heat, not boilThe stock must be very hot but off the boil when it goes over the yolks. Boiling liquid poured fast onto yolks will scramble them and the soup turns grainy; pour in a thin stream while whisking constantly. If the finished soup looks thin, return it to low heat and stir to 165-170F, never higher.
- Egg safetyThe yolks are cooked only by the residual heat of the stock, which may not hold long enough to pasteurize them. Use pasteurized eggs, or bring the finished soup to 165F over low heat while stirring, if you are serving anyone vulnerable.
- Warm the tureenA cold tureen drops the temperature of the stock immediately and leaves the yolks raw and streaky. Rinse it with boiling water and dry it before the yolks go in.
- Pearl tapioca and sagoUse small pearl tapioca, not instant or minute tapioca, which dissolves to paste. Soak 30 minutes to an hour in cold water, drain, then simmer in the stock 15-20 minutes until each pearl is translucent with no white center. Sago behaves the same way; both are starch pearls, sago from palm pith.
- Extract of beefThe period product is a concentrated meat paste — Bovril, Liebig's and their kin. A teaspoon of modern beef base or a good bouillon cube per cup of water gives the same effect, though salt levels vary; taste before seasoning.
- QuantitiesA quart of stock with 1 tablespoon of tapioca gives a lightly bodied soup; three yolks do most of the thickening. Season at the end, since the yolks mute salt.
- YieldFour small first-course servings. Serve at once — reheating past a bare simmer will curdle it.
Velvet soup belongs to the family of clear broths finished with a liaison of egg yolk, a technique French cookery calls lier aux jaunes. No dairy is involved, only the emulsifying power of yolk, which gives the smooth body the name describes. The closing note about beef extract is a mark of its period: concentrated meat extracts and pastes such as Bovril and Liebig's were widely available by the 1890s, and household writers offered them as a shortcut for cooks without a stockpot going.