German Punch

A tomato-and-apple water ice served as a mid-meal punch, in the style popular at formal American dinners around 1900. The whole point is the texture: it is frozen only to a coarse slush, never to a solid block.

• "Freeze to a mush"This is a granita consistency, not a hard ice. In a shallow pan in the freezer, stir and scrape with a fork every 30 minutes for 2-3 hours until it is loose crystals; in an ice cream machine, stop it while it is still pourable. Frozen solid, it loses the point and needs re-scraping to serve.
• Tomatoes1 3/4 cups is a volume measure, so canned tomatoes with their juice are the easiest match; a 14-15 oz can is roughly this. Peeled, seeded fresh tomatoes work if they are ripe; unripe ones make the punch thin and green-tasting.
• The ginger rootNo quantity is given. A piece about the size of a thumb, sliced but not grated, gives a clear warmth without dominating; it is meant to be fished out or caught in the sieve, not eaten.
• MaraschinoThe original means maraschino liqueur, a dry cherry-pit spirit, not the sweet red syrup from a jar of cocktail cherries. Luxardo or a similar maraschino is the intended flavour. The alcohol also keeps the ice softer, so an alcohol-free substitute will freeze harder and need more scraping.
• Cooking and sievingThirty-five minutes at a bare simmer is to soften the apples and cook the raw edge off the tomato. Push the mixture through a fine sieve rather than blending it: the skins and seeds are what you are removing, and a blender simply chops them finer.
• Sugar and acidTaste after sieving and before freezing. Freezing mutes both sweetness and acid noticeably, so the unfrozen mixture should taste slightly too sweet and slightly too sharp. Add lemon juice a teaspoon at a time if the tomato reads flat.
• Yield and servingServe in chilled stemmed glasses between courses.