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Salpicon of Fruit
1/2 cup strawberry juice 3/4 cup pineapple or orange juice 1/6 box vegetable gelatine 1/2 cup sugar 1 tablespoon lemon juice 1 cup water Drain the juice from a pint can of strawberries, and from a quart can of pineapple. Measure. To these add one-half of the water, the lemon juice and sugar. If the fruit juices are very sweet, less sugar will be required. Cook the vegetable gelatine, previously soaked and drained, in the remaining half of the water. Strain, and add to the fruit juices, then turn into stemmed sherbet glasses in which it is to be served. Decorate with triangular-shaped pieces of pineapple or orange arranged while soft on top of the jelly so as to point toward the center of the dish. A candied cherry in the center also adds to the attractiveness. This may be served as a first course or as a light dessert.
A canned-fruit jelly set with agar rather than animal gelatine. The substitution changes the handling more than the flavour, and that is where the attention needs to go.
- "Vegetable gelatine" is agarSold today as agar-agar in powder, flake or stick (kanten) form, made from red seaweed. It is not interchangeable spoon for spoon with gelatine: agar sets several times more strongly by weight, with the figure usually quoted around eight times, though it varies by grade and brand.
- The "1/6 box" is not convertiblePeriod boxes of vegetable gelatine varied by brand and are long gone, so this quantity cannot be translated honestly. Work instead from the package directions for the agar you have, aiming at the lower end of its range for a delicate jelly in a stemmed glass.
- Agar must actually boilThis is the hinge. Gelatine dissolves in hot water, but agar has to be brought to a full boil and held there a minute or two or it will never set. The recipe's instruction to cook the agar in half the water separately, then strain, is consistent with that requirement.
- Combine while hot, but work fastAgar begins to gel around 100-105F, well above room temperature, so the hot agar liquid and the cool fruit juices should be mixed and poured promptly. Once it skins over in the pan it will not pour smoothly.
- It sets on the counterNo refrigeration is needed to make it firm, and it will not slump at room temperature the way a gelatine jelly does. Chilling is for serving temperature only.
- Fresh pineapple is not a problem hereBromelain in fresh pineapple destroys a gelatine set, one reason gelatine recipes call for canned. Agar is a carbohydrate, not a protein, so it is unaffected.
- Sweetness and acidCanned fruit packed in syrup carries its own sugar; taste the combined juices before committing the half cup of sugar. Strongly acidic juice weakens an agar set slightly, so err toward more agar rather than less if using all citrus.
- Yield and finishRoughly two and a half cups of liquid, which fills four to six sherbet glasses. Set the pineapple or orange points in place while the surface is still tacky, as the recipe directs; once agar firms it will not accept a garnish without cracking.
Salpicon is a French kitchen term for ingredients cut into small uniform dice and bound in a sauce or jelly, usually savoury — its appearance here on a fruit dessert reflects the fondness of American cookbooks for French names on modest dishes. Gelatine is made from animal bones and hides, which puts it out of reach of a strictly meatless kitchen, and agar-agar — a seaweed extract long used in Japan as kanten and adopted by Western bacteriologists for culture plates — was the standard substitute. The suggestion that it might open a meal rather than close it is a reminder that sweet jellied dishes were not yet fixed to the dessert course.