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Tapioca Soup with Tomatoes
Put six ounces of tapioca into a saucepan, pour over one-half gallon of rich strained broth, boil for a couple of minutes, and move the pan to the side of the fire and simmer gently. Remove the seeds from four or five large tomatoes, put them in a saucepan with a small onion, a small sprig of parsley and a bay leaf tied up with it, also a few peppercorns and salt to taste. Put the saucepan over the fire, reduce the moisture of the tomatoes, rub the whole through a fine hair sieve into the soup, and serve when the tapioca is thoroughly done and dissolved.
A clear broth thickened with tapioca and finished with a tomato purée. The whole thing hinges on cooking the tapioca slowly enough that the grains go transparent and melt into the broth rather than sitting in it as beads.
- Quantities in modern termsHalf a gallon is 8 cups (about 1.9 litres) of broth; 6 ounces of tapioca is roughly 1 cup of small pearls. That ratio yields a distinctly thick soup — serves 8 generously. Cut the tapioca to 3–4 ounces if you want something closer to a consommé.
- Which tapiocaUse small pearl tapioca, not instant and not the large boba pearls, which will not dissolve. Instant tapioca hydrates in minutes and turns gluey at this quantity; small pearls need 20–30 minutes at a bare simmer to go fully translucent.
- "Move the pan to the side of the fire"On a coal range, the side of the firebox was the low-heat zone. On a modern burner this means the lowest possible setting, or a heat diffuser — tapioca scorches on the bottom of the pan and needs occasional stirring.
- Rich strained brothThe recipe specifies only a 'rich strained broth', which in this context would most likely be a meat stock; it calls for straining, not clarifying, and says nothing about fat. Unsalted homemade stock is best here; commercial broth plus a cup of tapioca can end up both salty and dull, so season only after the tapioca is done and the purée is in.
- The tomatoesFour or five large tomatoes is about 2 lb. Seeding is worth doing; the seeds and the jelly around them are often held to sharpen or embitter a purée, and at the least they add water. Out of season, a 28-ounce can of whole tomatoes, drained and reduced, gives a better result than pale fresh fruit.
- Reducing the tomatoes"Reduce the moisture" means cook them down uncovered until thick and jammy, 15–20 minutes, so the soup is not watered down. Fish out the herb bundle before sieving.
- The hair sieveA fine-mesh conical strainer with the back of a ladle, or a food mill, does the same work. Do not use a blender — it aerates the purée and clouds the finished soup.
- ServingTapioca soup thickens further as it stands and sets almost solid when cold. Serve it straight away, and thin leftovers with hot broth rather than water.
Tapioca, the starch of the cassava root, reached European and American kitchens by several routes and became a standard nineteenth-century thickener for both clear soups and puddings — Escoffier's consommé au tapioca, though later, is the same idea in a plainer form. Its appeal in a hotel kitchen was consistency: unlike a flour roux it thickened without clouding or dulling a good broth, and the visible pearls read as a garnish in their own right. Oscar Tschirky's book, published in 1896, is a very large general collection associated with the hotel, and this soup is characteristic of its method — a base built on carefully made stock, a separately cooked vegetable purée, and everything passed through a sieve before it reaches the table. The hair sieve named here, woven from horsehair, was the standard fine strainer of the period and was already giving way to wire mesh.