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Sago and Chicken Soup
From the carcass of a chicken a thin stock is made; flavor with a slice or two of onion and the green ends of a bunch of celery, finish by cooking in it I heaping teaspoonful of sago to each quart until the sago is perfectly transparent.
A frugal second-day soup built on a picked-over roast chicken, thickened with sago rather than flour. The instructions assume you already know how to make stock, so most of the work is in the details the author left out.
- The hinge: cook the sago until clearSago is done when the pearls turn from opaque white to fully translucent with no chalky centre. At a bare simmer this can take anywhere from about ten minutes to half an hour or more depending on pearl size, so judge by appearance rather than the clock. Pulled too early it is gritty; boiled hard it bursts and turns the soup gluey.
- What sago isStarch extracted from the pith of tropical sago palms, sold as small dry pearls. Small pearl tapioca is the closest substitute and behaves the same way, though it thickens a little more aggressively. Do not use instant or minute tapioca, which dissolves rather than staying whole.
- QuantitiesOne heaping teaspoon per quart works out at roughly 2 teaspoons per litre. That gives a barely bodied broth with pearls suspended in it, not a thick soup. Use more if you want more body.
- The carcass stockBreak up the bones so they fit, cover with cold water by an inch or two, and hold at a lazy simmer for 2 to 3 hours. One carcass yields roughly 2 quarts of the deliberately "thin stock" the recipe wants. Strain it and skim the fat before the sago goes in, since fat and starch together taste heavy.
- "Green ends of a bunch of celery"The leafy tops, which were often sold still attached rather than trimmed away. If your celery arrives topped, use two outer stalks plus any leaves.
- SeasoningNo salt or pepper is specified; a recipe this terse leaves it to the cook. Salt the stock after straining and before adding the sago; salting a thickened starchy soup evenly is harder.
- Adding the meatThe title promises chicken, but the method only makes the stock. Any shreds picked from the carcass should go in during the last few minutes, warmed through only, or they turn stringy.
- YieldAbout 2 quarts, serving six as a first course.
Sago reached Western kitchens as a colonial import from island Southeast Asia, and by the late nineteenth century it sat on grocers' shelves alongside tapioca, arrowroot and pearl barley as one of the cheap starches recommended for invalid cookery and nursery food. It was valued for being bland, easily digested and, crucially, for turning glassy and pretty in clear broth in a way that a flour thickening never could. A soup like this belongs squarely to the economy tradition: the roast bird was Sunday dinner, the picked carcass became Monday's stock, and a spoonful of an inexpensive pantry starch turned that thin liquid into something that could be sent to table as a course in its own right. Sago has largely been displaced in English-speaking kitchens by tapioca, which is cassava-based, though sago pearls remain common in South and Southeast Asian cooking.