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Consomme, White House
Prepare a consomme, strain into another saucepan and keep it simmering. Boil an ounce rice in a half pint water for ten minutes, thoroughly drain on sieve and add to consomme. Thoroughly wash and drain on a sieve two ounces Brazilian tapioca, gradually add to consomme, continually mixing while adding, and let boil fifteen minutes, mixing at bottom once in a while. Add three tablespoons canned green peas, two tablespoons sherry, lightly mix and boil for five minutes, pour consomme into a soup tureen and serve.
A garnished clear soup in the hotel style: the consommé is made separately, and the whole point of the method is to add starches without clouding it. Quantities for the consommé itself are not given.
- The hinge: parboil and rinse everythingThe rice is boiled apart and drained, and the tapioca washed, precisely so their loose surface starch never enters the broth. Skip either step and a carefully clarified consommé turns milky, which defeats the dish.
- How much consomméHow much consomme -- The original assumes you know; no quantity is given for the consomme itself. With 1 oz rice, 2 oz tapioca and 3 tablespoons peas, the garnish would suit something in the region of 2 quarts, but this is an estimate, not the book's figure.
- Weights in modern termsAn ounce of raw rice is a scant 2 tablespoons; 2 oz of tapioca is about 1/3 cup. Half a pint of water for the rice is 1 cup.
- Brazilian tapiocaA period trade name for tapioca from cassava (manioc); it most likely indicates a small pearl or flake grade rather than the instant granules sold for pudding, though the term was not used consistently. Small pearls will clear in roughly the 15 minutes given; large pearls tend to stay chalky in the centre, and instant tapioca dissolves to paste.
- Stir from the bottomTapioca sinks and sticks to the pan. 'Mixing at bottom once in a while' is not optional advice; scrape the base every few minutes. Note that the recipe calls for a boil, not a simmer, which makes the scraping the more necessary.
- Canned peasDrain and rinse them, and add at the very end as directed. They are already fully cooked; five minutes is enough to heat them through, and longer turns them grey. Thawed frozen peas behave the same way.
- The sherryThe recipe specifies only sherry, not a style; two tablespoons is a seasoning rather than a flavour at any plausible volume. The directed five minutes' boiling cooks off the raw edge; if you would rather keep the aroma, stir it in off the heat just before serving.
- ServingMeant for a tureen and ladled at table. The tapioca keeps thickening as it stands, so serve promptly or hold it slack with a little extra hot consommé.
Naming a clear soup after its garnish, and the garnish after a person or place, was standard practice in professional kitchens; a consommé with rice, tapioca and peas is otherwise unremarkable, so the title does the work of distinguishing it on a menu. American hotel and club cooks of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are often said to have produced a long line of dishes styled "White House," "Washington" and the like, generally as compliments rather than records of anything actually served at the executive mansion, and no particular administration need be assumed here. The tapioca is the more interesting ingredient: pearl tapioca is cassava starch, and by the 1900s it reached American kitchens in quantity as a cheap thickener that, unlike flour, leaves a broth translucent, which is exactly why it earned a place in clear soups.