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Currant Punch (Mix a pint of currant juice)
Mix a pint of currant juice, a quart of water, and a cupful of sugar. Cook slowly for five minutes, and then cool. When cool pour into a punch bowl over a piece of ice. Add two oranges and two lemons sliced thin. Another way to make Currant Punch: Melt and dilute with water a jar of currant jelly. Cool, and add cracked ice and fruit.
A straightforward syrup-and-fruit punch that needs almost no translation, though a few of its assumptions are worth spelling out.
- Getting the juiceA pint of currant juice is roughly what you get from 2 to 2 1/2 lb of red currants, crushed, warmed gently to break them down, and strained through a jelly bag. Bottled red currant juice or nectar works, but taste it first: many commercial versions are pre-sweetened, in which case cut the sugar sharply.
- The five-minute cookThis is only to dissolve the sugar and marry it with the juice, not to reduce anything. Keep it below a rolling boil and pull it off at five minutes; longer cooking dulls the fresh red-fruit aroma that is the whole point of currants.
- "A cupful"Read it as 8 fl oz, about 7 oz of granulated sugar. Against a pint of tart currant juice and a quart of water that lands on the modest side, which is correct for a punch served over melting ice.
- "A piece of ice"The original assumes a single large lump chipped from an ice block, which chills slowly and dilutes slowly. Freeze water in a loaf pan or a large bowl to get the same effect; cubes will water the punch down within the half hour.
- The jelly variationThe original does not say what size jar; jars of currant jelly have commonly run anywhere from 8 to 18 oz, so work by taste. Melt it over low heat with a little water, then dilute to taste; jelly is already roughly 60 percent sugar, so no further sweetening is wanted. Strain it if the jelly is cloudy.
- The citrusSlice the oranges and lemons thin and add them at serving time rather than letting them steep for hours. Modern thick-skinned citrus turns the punch bitter if the pith sits in it, and unwaxed fruit is worth seeking out since the peel is in the glass.
- YieldAbout 3 pints of liquid before ice, so eight to ten punch-cup servings, or six taller glasses.
Currants were a fixture of the American kitchen garden and the summer jelly cupboard long before they were a supermarket item, which is why this recipe offers a version built on a jar off the shelf as its fallback — a cook in July might have fresh juice, a cook in January would more likely have jelly. Red currants also happen to be high in natural pectin and acid, which is what makes them set so readily into jelly and gives a punch like this its clean, sharp finish without much help.