Clear Soup with Sago or Tapioca.
Soak half a cup of German sago or pearl tapioca four hours in a large cup of cold water. An hour before dinner put a quart of your soup-stock on the stove and bring quickly almost to a boil. When it is hot, stir in the raw white and the shell of an egg, and, stirring frequently to prevent the egg from catching on the bottom of the pot, boil fast ten minutes.
Take off and strain through a clean thick cloth, wrung out in hot water and laid like a lining in your colander. Do not squeeze the cloth, or you will muddy the soup.
Return the liquid, when strained, to the saucepan, which must be perfectly clean; stir in the soaked tapioca and a teaspoonful of minced parsley, and simmer half an hour on the side of the range.
If necessary, add a little more seasoning.
When you have made nice clear soup once, you may, if you like, color the second supply with a little “caramel-water.”
This is made by putting a tablespoonful of sugar in a tin cup and setting it over the fire until it breaks up into brown bubbles, then pouring a few tablespoonfuls of boiling water on it and stirring it until dissolved. A tablespoonful of this in a quart of clear soup will give a fine amber color and not injure the flavor. Send all soups in to table very hot.