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Mint and Grapefruit Sherbet
1 pint water 1 1/2 cups sugar 4 or 5 sprigs mint 1/2 teaspoon gelatine 2 tablespoons cold water 1 1/2 cups grapefruit pulp 1/2 cup grapejuice 1 egg white, beaten stiff Boil water and sugar rapidly 10 minutes. Add mint, crushing it into the hot syrup. Soak gelatine in the cold water 5 minutes. Add it to the hot syrup, dissolve it. Strain liquid. Add grapefruit pulp and grape--juice and freeze in ice and salt, 4 to 1 mixture. When sherbet begins to freeze, stir in the beaten egg white.
A light gelatine-stabilized sherbet from the era when the ice-and-salt freezer was standard equipment. Nearly everything translates directly; the freezing method is the part that needs rethinking.
- The syrup is the hingeTen minutes of rapid boiling reduces a pint of water and 1 1/2 cups sugar to a moderately thick syrup, and that sugar concentration is what keeps the finished sherbet from freezing into a solid block. Do not shorten it, and do not add extra water to make up for evaporation.
- Mint off the heatCrush the sprigs into the syrup once it is off the burner and let them steep 10 to 15 minutes before straining. Held over heat, mint turns grassy and slightly bitter.
- GelatineHalf a teaspoon of granulated gelatine is roughly a fifth of a modern 1/4-ounce envelope (about 2 1/4 teaspoons). It is there for texture only, not to set anything; measure it rather than guessing, since more will make the sherbet gummy.
- Grapefruit pulpThis means the sectioned flesh with membrane and seeds removed, broken up with its juice, not strained juice alone. About two medium grapefruit gives 1 1/2 cups. "Grape--juice" is simply grape juice; bottled grape juice in this period was usually Concord.
- Freezing in ice and saltThe "4 to 1 mixture" is four parts crushed ice to one part rock salt by volume, packed around a hand-cranked canister. In an electric ice cream maker, churn the chilled mixture 20 to 30 minutes. Without a machine, freeze in a shallow metal pan and beat it smooth with a fork every 30 minutes.
- When to add the egg whiteFold it in when the mixture has thickened to a slush but is not yet firm. Too early and it dissolves into the base; too late and it stays in streaks.
- Raw egg whiteThe white is never heated, so use pasteurized whites in a carton if you are serving anyone elderly, pregnant, or immune-compromised. It whips and folds the same way.
- YieldSomething over a quart. Ripen it in the freezer an hour before serving and it will scoop cleanly.