No. 316

Japanese or Nizam Pearls. Tapioca, Manioc, Sago or Salep, Semolino, Cassava, Gluten

Perles de Japon ou de Nizam, Tapioca Manioc, Sagou Salep, Semoule, Cassave et Gluten

It takes from twenty to forty minutes to cook these farinaceous foods. Let drop like rain into the boiling consomme, the proportion of one spoonful for each pint of liquid; boil slowly, and skim the surface carefully. The length of time to cook Japanese or nizam pearls, is to boil them for ten minutes, and finish cooking in a bain-marie, for thirty minutes longer.

For sago and salep, boil for ten minutes, and finish cooking in a bain-marie for twenty minutes longer.

French tapioca needs boiling five to ten minutes.

Manioc tapioca which is generally used in this country requires longer cooking; it will take twenty minutes; it may be kept in a bain-marie for ten minutes longer.

Gluten takes twenty minutes to cook.

Semolino and farina, ten minutes.

Cassava, twenty-five minutes.

← No. 315 Hunters' Style Soup Soups & Broths No. 317 Jerome Soup with Sweet Potato Quenelles →

For the Modern Kitchen

This is a reference table rather than a dish: Ranhofer is telling you how long each starch takes when it is dropped into clear soup as a garnish. The proportions and the technique matter more than any single timing.

The proportionOne spoonful per pint of consomme — most likely a tablespoon, on the order of 10–15 g of dry starch per 2 cups. It is deliberately sparse; the point is a scattering of translucent grains in a clear soup, not a thickened one.
"Let drop like rain"This is the hinge. Scatter the dry grains slowly over boiling liquid while stirring so each one is wetted separately. Dumped in a heap they bond into a lump that never fully hydrates.
Bain-marie finishHere the bain-marie is a covered pan set in simmering water, holding the soup just below a boil. It lets the grains swell and go clear without agitation, which would cloud a consomme and break the pearls. A very low burner does the same work.
Skim carefullyStarch grains release surface scum and free amylose that clouds clear soup. Skim more than once, and do not let the pot boil hard at any point after the first ten minutes.
Modern timings are shorterThese figures are for the granulated and pearl products of the 1890s. Today's small quick-cooking tapioca is done in about 10 minutes, semolina in 5 to 8, and small sago pearls in 15 to 20. Cook until the grains are clear through with no white core, and judge by that rather than the clock.
What the names meanJapanese and Nizam pearls are trade names for pearl starch, usually tapioca from cassava, though products sold under these names were not always identical; Ranhofer's separate timings suggest he treated "French tapioca" and "manioc tapioca" as different grades, the latter apparently the slower-cooking one. Semolino is semolina, farina is finely milled wheat, and cassava here means the plain dried starch or meal.
SalepSalep is flour from dried wild orchid tubers. It is scarce, expensive and export-restricted from Turkey because of pressure on wild populations; most "salep" sold abroad is a flavoured starch blend. Sago, from palm pith, behaves similarly in soup and is easier to buy.
GlutenNineteenth-century "gluten" was a granulated wheat-protein product sold for invalid and diabetic cookery. Nothing on a supermarket shelf matches it; vital wheat gluten is a dough additive and will not behave as a soup garnish.
YieldA pint of garnished consomme serves two as a first course. Serve it the day it is made — tapioca and sago continue absorbing liquid and turn gummy on standing, and they do not reheat well.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer wrote The Epicurean (1894) out of some thirty years at Delmonico's in New York, and this entry shows the kitchen's habit of codifying small operations into a single reference paragraph a cook could work from. Garnished clear soups were the backbone of the formal French service he practised: a strong consomme was the base, and its name changed with whatever was dropped into it — pearls, semolina, quenelles, royale. Several of the starches on his list arrived through the colonial trade: tapioca and cassava from Brazilian manioc, sago from Southeast Asian palms, salep from Anatolian and Persian orchids, the last long sold as a thickener and as a hot street drink in Ottoman cities. "Perles de Nizam" is generally traced to the marketing of pearl tapioca under an Indian princely title, one of several such trade names — Japanese pearls among them — that had little to do with the actual place of origin. The presence of gluten in the list is a reminder that Delmonico's also cooked for invalids and for the fashionable dietary regimens of the 1890s.