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Consomme with Sago
Larkin Sago may be used in the consomme preparing like the tapioca.
A one-line variation rather than a full recipe: it assumes you already have the book's clear consommé and its tapioca garnish in front of you. The whole point is the starch pearl, so that is where the attention belongs.
- What sago isSago is starch extracted from the pith of tropical palms, sold as small hard pearls. "Larkin Sago" was simply the house brand of the Larkin Company, which sold groceries by mail; any pearl sago from an Asian or South Asian grocer does the same job, and small pearl tapioca is the standard substitute.
- QuantityThe original gives none. For a garnished consommé, a modern starting point is about 1 tablespoon of pearls per 2 cups of finished soup. More than that turns a clear soup into a thick one.
- Cook the pearls apart from the consomméThis is the hinge. Sago and tapioca shed starch as they cook and will cloud a consommé you have spent hours clarifying. Simmer the pearls in salted water or a little plain stock, drain, rinse briefly, then add them to the hot consommé at the last moment.
- How to tell when they are doneSimmer 15 to 20 minutes, until each pearl is translucent through to the centre with no white dot left. Undercooked sago is chalky at the core; overcooked, it collapses into paste.
- SoakingLarger pearls are often soaked in cold water first, which shortens cooking and helps them swell evenly. Fine pearls need no soaking.
- ServingServe very hot; the pearls read best against a clear broth with nothing else in it. Season the consommé to final strength before adding the pearls, since they carry no flavour of their own.
Sago belongs to a family of clear-soup garnishes — tapioca, vermicelli, semolina, custard royale, tiny pasta — that let a hotel or a well-run household kitchen turn one batch of consommé into a dozen differently named items on the menu, which is why a book of this period can dispose of the whole dish in a single sentence cross-referenced to the recipe before it. The pearls themselves are washed starch from the pith of palms such as Metroxylon sagu, a staple food across island Southeast Asia long before it reached Europe, where it arrived through the colonial spice and provision trade and was sold in tins and paper packets as an invalid food and pudding thickener. The Larkin Company of Buffalo, a soap manufacturer that expanded into groceries and premiums sold direct to households, put its own name on such staples, and the brand appearing inside the instruction is a reminder that these turn-of-the-century American cookbooks often circulated as part of a company's catalogue.