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Punch Jelly (Which lay on the corner)
which lay on the corner of a stove without allowing it to boil, lest it should taste too bitter. Cut the oranges in two, have a lemon squeezer and silk sieve to squeeze the oranges (which dip in water to prevent waste); squeeze the oranges into an earthen pan, and pour into it through the sieve the infusion of peel. Next clarify a pound of sugar or so, and then pour in the orange juice. The heat of the sugar will clarify the jelly. Do not let it boil, but as soon as you perceive a yellow scum skim it, and pour the jelly into a bag. Next mix some melted isinglass, either hot® or cold. This jelly must not be made too firm. If the oranges are too ripe, mix a little lemon-juice to make them more acid. Eighteen oranges are requisite to make a good jelly. Lemon jelly may be made in the same way. Another Way. To two quarts of calf's feet or cow-heel stock made stiff, add the juice of twelve China oranges and the peel of six, the juice of two lemons and peel of one; pare the oranges and lemons very thin. Boil all together for half an hour, and sweeten to the taste, .
Strain through a piece of muslin.
Another Way.-Boil two ounces of isinglass in a pint of water, three-quarters of a pound of loaf sugar in another pint of water. Squeeze eight oranges, add the juice and rind of one lemon, and grate the peel of some of the oranges. Mix all the ingredients together , and let it boil a quarter of an hour. Strain it through a flannel bag, and put it into the mould.
Three versions of a citrus jelly, from a cold-infusion method to two boiled ones set with calf's-foot stock or isinglass. The controlling instruction in the first is the one it opens with: the peel infusion must be kept below a simmer or the jelly turns bitter.
- Isinglass and gelatineIsinglass is a collagen setting agent from fish swim bladders, still sold but expensive and slow to dissolve. Powdered or leaf gelatine does the same work, though the two are not interchangeable weight for weight.
- "Some melted isinglass" is not a quantityThe first method gives no weight at all, only the warning that the jelly must not be too firm. Judge it by chilling a spoonful on a cold saucer before you commit the whole batch to a mould.
- China orangesThese are ordinary sweet oranges, as distinct from the bitter Seville sort; in earlier English recipes an unqualified "orange" often meant the Seville. Modern navels or Valencias are what is wanted.
- Clarifying sugarLoaf sugar was cast in cones and often contained impurities, so it was boiled with water and skimmed. Present-day granulated sugar needs no clarifying; dissolve it in the water and skip the skimming.
- Silk sieve and flannel bagBoth were straining cloths. Fine muslin, a coffee filter or a jelly bag will do, and the point is the same: let it drip rather than squeezing, or the jelly clouds.
- Don't boil the peelThe first version keeps the peel infusion at the cool corner of the range for good reason. Boiled citrus zest releases bitter compounds from the pith and white layer; the second version's instruction to pare the peel very thin points in the same direction.
- Calf's-foot stockThe second version depends on a stiff gelatinous stock made by long-boiling calf's feet or cow heel, then chilling and lifting off the fat. Few butchers keep them; a well-reduced veal-bone stock or plain gelatine takes its place.
- Yield and mouldingEighteen oranges make a large jelly. Chill in a wetted mould until fully set, and dip the mould briefly in warm water to turn it out.
- AlcoholDespite the section heading, none of the three methods here includes spirits. A punch jelly proper carries rum or brandy, and any alcohol should be stirred in off the heat, since gelatine sets less firmly as the alcohol proportion rises.