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Apples, Compote of (Soyer's Recipe)
INGREDIENTS for dish for 4 or 5 persons.-6 ripe apples, 1 lemon, 1/2 lb. of lump sugar, 1/2 pint of water. AVERAGE COST, 6d. to 9d.
Select the apples of a moderate size, peel them, cut them in halves, remove the cores, and rub each piece over with a little lemon.
Put the sugar and water together into a lined saucepan, and let them boil until forming a thickish syrup, then lay in the apples with the rind of the lemon cut thin, and the juice of the same. Let the apples simmer till tender; then take them out very carefully, a COMPOTE OF APPLES. き drain them on a sieve, and reduce the syrup by boiling it quickly for few minutes. When both are cold, arrange the apples neatly on a glass dish, pour over the syrup, flavouring it with a little liqueur if liked, and garnish with strips of green angelica or preserved cherries. Smaller apples may be dressed in the same manner: they should not be divided in half, but peeled, and the cores pushed out with a vegetable-cutter.
TIME.-10 minutes to boil the sugar and water together; from 20 to 30 minutes to simmer the apples.
SEASONABLE from August to March.
Apples, Flanc of; or Apples in a raised Crust. - INGREDIENTS. Ib. of short crust, 2 lb. of moderate-sized apples, the rind and juice of 1/2 lemon, 1/2 lb. of white sugar, pint of water, a few strips of citron or other preserved fruits for garnish. AVERAGE COST, 1s.
Make a plain stiff short crust, roll it out to the thickness of 1/2 inch, and butter an oval mould; line it with the crust, and press it carefully all round the sides, to obtain the form of the mould, but be particular not to break the paste. Pinch the part that just rises above the mould with the paste-pincers, and fill the case with flour; bake it for about al hour; then take it out of the oven, remove the flour, put the case back in the oven for another 1/4 hour, and do not allow it to get scorched.
It is now ready for the apples, which should be prepared in the following manner: peel, and take out the cores with a small knife, or a scoop for the purpose, without dividing the apples; put them into a small lined saucepan, just capable of holding them, with sugar, water, lemonjuice and rind, in the above proportion. APPLES, GINGER.
APPLES IN RED JELLY.
Simmer them very gently until tender; them into the same syrup with the other then take out the apples, let them cool, 1/2 lb. of sugar, the lemon-peel, and boil arrange them in the flanc, or case, and boil down the syrup until reduced to a thick jelly; pour it over the apples, and garnish.
A more simple flanc may be made by rolling out the paste, cutting the bottom of a round or oval shape, and then a narrow strip for the sides: these should be stuck on with the white of an egg to the bottom piece, and the flanc then filled with raw fruit, with sufficient sugar to sweeten it nicely. It will not require so long baking as in a mould; but the crust must be made everywhere of an equal thick ness, and so perfectly joined that the juice does not escape. This dish may also be served hot, and should be garnished in the same manner, or a little melted apricot jam may be poured over the apples, which very much improves their flavour.
TIME.-Altogether 1 hour to bake the flanc; from 30 to 40 minutes to stew the apples very gently.
SEASONABLE from August to March.
A simple poached-apple dessert whose success rests entirely on the apples holding their shape. Everything else is a sugar syrup reduced twice.
- The hinge: gentle heatThe apples must barely tremble in the syrup, never boil, or the halves collapse into sauce before they are cooked through. Keep the pan at the faintest simmer and turn the pieces once rather than stirring.
- Choose a firm appleThe recipe only says "ripe apples," but halves will only survive gentle poaching if the variety holds its shape. Bramleys and other soft cookers will fall apart; Braeburn, Pink Lady or Golden Delicious hold up well.
- Lump sugarLoaf or lump sugar was refined white sugar broken from a cone. Ordinary granulated sugar is the direct substitute: 1/2 lb is about 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons.
- Half a pint of waterAn imperial half-pint is 10 fl oz, so about 1 1/4 US cups. With the sugar this gives a syrup that will thicken in roughly 10 minutes of brisk boiling.
- Lined saucepanThis means a copper pan lined with tin, specified because bare copper reacts with acid fruit. Any stainless steel or enamelled pan does the job now.
- Rub each piece with lemonThis is purely to stop the cut surfaces browning while the rest are peeled. A bowl of water with a squeeze of lemon in it is easier and works better.
- Reducing the syrupTake the syrup further than you think necessary once the apples are out; it should coat a spoon while hot, since it will only just pour when cold. If it sets too hard, loosen it with a spoonful of water over low heat.
- The garnishCandied angelica is still sold by specialist confectioners but is easily replaced with glace cherries, toasted flaked almonds, or a strip of candied lemon peel. The recipe leaves the optional liqueur unspecified; kirsch or maraschino would suit.
- YieldSix apples in halves serves four to five as written. Both apples and syrup are assembled cold, so it can be made ahead and kept chilled.
The attribution is to Alexis Soyer (1810-1858), the French-born chef of the Reform Club in London, whose showmanship, popular cookery books and field kitchens for the Crimea made him the most famous cook in Britain in the years just before Beeton's book appeared. A compote is simply fruit poached whole or in pieces in sugar syrup and served in its own reduced liquid, a preparation that sat at the plain end of French dessert cookery and travelled easily into English households. Its place in a book organised alphabetically by ingredient says something about the Victorian apple: stored in lofts and fruit rooms, it was the one fresh fruit reliably available from the August harvest through to March, which is exactly the season this entry claims.