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Sago Sauce for Sweet Pud- dings
INGREDIENTS for sauce for large pudding.-1 tablespoonful of sago, & pint of water, 1/4 pint of port or sherry, the rind and juice of 1 small lemon, sugar to taste; when the flavour is liked, a little pounded cinnamon. AVERAGE COST, 8d. SAGO SOUP.
Wash the sago in two or three waters; then put it into a saucepan with the water and lemon-peel; let it simmer gently by the side of the fire for 10 minutes, then take out the lemon-peel, add the remaining ingredients, give one boil, and serve. particular to strain the lemon-juice before adding it to the sauce. This, on trial, will SAGO PALM.
Be be found a delicious accompaniment to various boiled puddings, such as those made of bread, raisins, rice, &c.
TIME.-10 minutes.
A thin, wine-based dessert sauce thickened lightly with sago, meant to be poured over steamed and boiled puddings. It comes together in about ten minutes.
- The water quantity is unclearThe recipe as printed gives the water only as "pint" with the fraction lost, so the exact amount cannot be recovered. A sauce built on 1 tablespoon of sago and 1/4 pint of wine would want roughly 1/2 imperial pint (10 fl oz) of water for a pourable consistency; less water gives a thicker sauce.
- Sago itselfSago is starch from the pith of the sago palm, sold as small hard pearls. It is not the same as tapioca pearls, though tapioca of a similar size behaves nearly identically here. Modern sago is clean enough that the two or three changes of washing water are no longer necessary, though a quick rinse removes loose starch.
- A gill and a pintBeeton's pint is the imperial 20 fl oz, so 1/4 pint of port is about 5 fl oz, or a scant 2/3 cup. Scaling with US cups will give slightly less wine and less liquid overall.
- "Simmer gently by the side of the fire"On a range that means the lowest heat you can hold, off to one side of the burner or over a diffuser. Sago sticks and scorches readily; stir now and then during the ten minutes.
- One boil onlyThe wine, lemon juice and sugar go in at the end and the sauce is brought up just once. Prolonged boiling after the wine is added drives off the alcohol and the port flavour, which is the whole point of the sauce.
- Strain the lemon juiceThe original makes a point of this: pulp and pips suspended in a translucent sauce are obvious, and a pip in a pudding sauce is unpleasant.
- Lemon rindPare the zest in strips with no white pith and take it out before the wine goes in, as directed. Grated zest cannot be removed and will leave the sauce speckled and slightly bitter.
- Yield and servingEnough for a large pudding, as the original states. Serve hot in a jug; sago sauce thickens noticeably as it cools and will need thinning with a little water and reheating if made ahead.
Sago reached British kitchens through the East Indies trade, and by the middle of the nineteenth century it was a cheap and familiar thickener, sold alongside arrowroot and tapioca. It was valued for invalid cookery and nursery puddings because it thickens without the floury taste of a flour-based sauce and stays translucent, so a wine sauce keeps its colour. Beeton's costing of eightpence appears to reflect the port rather than the starch: a tablespoon of sago was a trifling expense, while fortified wine was the more considerable item. It belongs to a large Victorian family of sweet wine sauces poured over boiled bread, rice and raisin puddings, which needed the moisture and the flavour that a lean steamed pudding lacks.