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Sago and Apple Compote
Peel and core three sound apples, cut in quarters and finely slice. Place in a frying pan with an ounce butter, a tablespoon sugar, half teaspoon vanilla essence and cook for ten minutes, gently tossing once in a while, then shift pan to corner of range. Thoroughly wash and drain three ounces sago and place in enamelled saucepan with three-quarters pint milk, two ounces sugar and half teaspoon vanilla essence. Mix well, let boil for fifteen minutes, add apples to pan with a gill cream and gently mix. Cook for five minutes, pour preparation into a deep compotier and serve.
A milk pudding thickened with sago, served in a footed glass dish. The whole thing hinges on stirring — sago sinks and scorches the instant your attention wanders.
- Stir constantlySago releases starch as it swells and will glue itself to the bottom of the pan within a minute or two of being left alone. Use a heavy-bottomed pan over low heat and keep a spoon moving; enamelled saucepans of the kind the original specifies were the usual choice for milk and for anything acidic, and any nonreactive pan works.
- Sago itselfPearl sago comes from the pith of the sago palm and is sold in Asian and some health-food shops; small pearl tapioca is the usual substitute and behaves almost identically. Three ounces is roughly half a cup of pearls.
- The milk quantityThree-quarters of an imperial pint is 15 fluid ounces (a US three-quarter pint would be 12). The recipe's use of gills points to imperial. Start at about 1 3/4 cups and add more milk if the pearls are still chalky in the centre; sago drinks a surprising amount.
- A gill of creamFive imperial fluid ounces, about two-thirds of a US cup (the US gill is 4 oz, half a cup). Added near the end with the apples and given a further five minutes' gentle cooking.
- Corner of the rangeOn a coal or wood range, the corner was the cool zone — the modern equivalent is simply lifting the pan off the heat, or the lowest setting on a small burner. The apples are meant to hold warm, not continue cooking.
- Fifteen minutes may not be enoughSago was often soaked before cooking in older recipes. Cook until the pearls are translucent all the way through with no white speck at the centre -- anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes depending on the size of the pearl. If they are still gritty, keep cooking with a little extra milk.
- ApplesA firm apple that holds its shape is best; Braeburn or Granny Smith sliced thin. Ten minutes in butter and sugar should leave the slices tender at the edge and still distinct, not collapsed to sauce.
- Compotier and yieldA compotier is a footed serving bowl for fruit; the recipe asks for a deep one. This serves four. Sago sets firm as it cools, so either serve it warm and loose or expect a sliceable pudding by the next day; a splash of milk stirred in loosens it.
Sago reached European kitchens as a colonial import — starch extracted from the pith of palms grown across island Southeast Asia — and by the nineteenth century it had settled into two roles: nursery food and invalid food, valued for being bland, cheap and easy on the stomach. Dressing it up as a compote, with buttered apples, vanilla and cream, and sending it to table in a glass compotier, is the hotel-kitchen manoeuvre that runs through this whole book: a French serving vocabulary applied to humble material. The pairing is logical enough, since a compote is properly fruit stewed in syrup, and the sago here supplies the body that a plain compote lacks.