Apples, Ginger
INGREDIENTS for 3 dishes-1½ oz. of whole ginger, pint of whiskey or other spirit, 3 lbs. of apples, 2 lbs. of loaf sugar, the juice of 2 lemons. AVERAGE COST, 2s. 6d.
Bruise the ginger, put it into a small jar, pour over whiskey to cover it, and let it remain for 3 days; then cut the apples into thin slices, after paring and coring them; add the sugar and the lemon juice, which should be strained; and simmer all together very gently until the apples are transparent, but not broken. Serve cold, and garnish the dish with slices of candied lemon-peel or preserved ginger.
TIME.-3 days to soak the ginger; about hour to simmer the apples very gently.
SEASONABLE from August to March. (A pretty Supper Dish.)
A Victorian supper sweet: apple slices poached to translucency in ginger-infused spirit and sugar. It works, but only if the pan is barely trembling.
- The hinge: no boilThe apples must go clear while still holding their shape, which means the lowest possible simmer in a wide pan, in a single layer if you can manage it. A rolling boil turns the lot to sauce in minutes and there is no recovering it.
- Whole gingerThis is dried root ginger, the hard knobbly kind sold for pickling and brewing, not fresh rhizome. Bruise it with the flat of a knife or a rolling pin to crack it open; 1½ oz is about 40 g. Fresh ginger gives a brighter, wetter heat and rather less of the dry pungency intended here.
- How much whiskeyThe ingredient list calls for a pint (an imperial pint, 568 ml), but the method only says to pour whiskey over the ginger to cover it in a small jar, so it is unclear how much of the pint is actually used; that infused spirit is what goes in with the apples.
- Loaf sugarRefined white sugar, sold in the period as a solid cone to be nipped into lumps. Ordinary granulated sugar is the direct equivalent. Two pounds to three pounds of apples is a heavy syrup, and the finished dish is closer to a preserve than a compote.
- ApplesUse a firm cooking or dessert apple that holds together, such as Braeburn, Granny Smith or Bramley cut thick. The August-to-March season reflects English orchard fruit and cellar storage rather than any quality of the dish.
- The garbled timingThe original prints "about hour," with the fraction lost in the setting. Expect somewhere between 30 and 60 minutes of very gentle cooking, judged entirely by the apples turning translucent, not by the clock.
- AlcoholA gentle uncovered simmer of under an hour drives off some but by no means all of the spirit. Treat the finished dish as alcoholic.
- Yield and servingThe heading "for 3 dishes" means the quantity fills three serving dishes for a supper table; the original gives no portion count. Serve cold, and lift the ginger pieces out before dishing unless you want them as garnish alongside the candied lemon peel.
Ginger and apples are an old English pairing, and this recipe belongs to the Victorian supper table rather than to dinner proper: something sweet, cold and already made, set out for guests after an evening's cards or music. The heavy sugar and the spirit are both preservative as much as flavouring. Whole dried ginger had long been established in British kitchens, reaching them from the medieval period through Mediterranean and Levantine trade, and was a staple of the store cupboard, used for beer, cordials and preserves as much as for baking; steeping it in spirit to draw out the heat is said to have been done long before commercial ginger essences. The "average cost, 2s. 6d." line is characteristic of Beeton's editorial method, which treated household budgeting as inseparable from cookery, and the seasonable note points to a period when apples came from the store loft rather than from a shop.