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Anisette Jelly with Pears
Cut some large pears into six pieces each, boil them in some syrup and color with a few drops of prepared cochineal. Whisk a little gelatine over a fire till boiling, adding the whites of some eggs and a little lump-sugar, to which add the juice of lemon and a little water. Take this mixture off, and let it cool, then add a little anisette. Drain the pears, and fill a plain cylinder-mould with them and the jelly alternately. Pack the mould in ice, and when the jelly is solid, which will probably be about two hours, turn out, and serve.
Oscar gives proportions for nobody: "some" pears, "a little" gelatine, "some" egg whites. What follows is what the method assumes, plus the two steps he leaves unsaid.
- The hinge: the egg whites are for clarifying, not for bodyWhisking egg white into gelatine and bringing it to a boil is the classic clarification raft — the coagulating albumen traps cloudiness. The jelly must then be strained through a scalded cloth or fine sieve, which Oscar omits, and the whites discarded. Left in, they give a grey, curd-flecked jelly rather than the glass-clear one the dish depends on.
- Gelatine quantitiesFor a mould that will turn out cleanly, use about 1 tablespoon (one 7 g envelope) of powdered gelatine or 3 sheets per 2 cups of liquid, and go slightly heavier here because both the anisette and the acid from the lemon weaken the set. Clarifying costs you a little liquid, so measure after straining.
- Add the anisette off the heatThis is stated in the original and worth respecting: alcohol boiled with the jelly loses the anise aroma that is the whole point. Roughly 2 to 3 tablespoons of anisette per 2 cups of jelly is enough to read clearly without keeping it soft.
- CochinealCarmine, from the dried scale insect, was the standard kitchen red in 1896 and is still sold as liquid or powdered carmine. It is not vegan. A few drops give the pink blush intended; any modern red food colour behaves the same.
- Syrup and the pearsA light poaching syrup, in the region of 1 part sugar to 2 parts water, suits the dish. Firm pears — Bosc or underripe Bartlett — hold their shape; ripe ones collapse. Poach at a bare simmer 10 to 15 minutes until a skewer meets slight resistance, then drain thoroughly, since poaching liquid clinging to the fruit will streak the jelly.
- Building the mouldSet a thin layer of jelly first and let it firm, then alternate drained pear and cool but still-liquid jelly, chilling between layers. Jelly poured warm over a set layer melts it and the fruit floats to the top.
- Ice versus refrigerator"Pack the mould in ice" is the pre-refrigeration method: the mould buried in crushed ice. A refrigerator does the same work; allow 3 to 4 hours rather than two, and longer if you are setting it in layers. Unmould by dipping the outside briefly in hot water.
- YieldA 6-cup cylinder mould, three or four large pears, and about 4 cups of finished jelly serves eight.
Oscar Tschirky's book belongs to the height of the great age of moulded jelly, when a clear, quivering, unsupported cylinder turned out whole onto a platter was a display of technical skill: the gelatine had to be clarified with egg white, coloured, flavoured and set with nothing but an ice cave to work in. Anisette — a sweet aniseed liqueur generally traced to French and Dutch distillers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and by Oscar's day a fixture of the American bar through brands such as Marie Brizard — was one of the standard perfumes for such sweets, along with maraschino, kirsch and curaçao.