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Compote of Pears
Cut four large baking-pears into six pieces each, lengthwise, but keeping one whole half for the center of the compote; pare and core the pieces of pears and put them in a lined-pan with some 16 degrees syrup, one teaspoonful of prepared cochineal and a little lemon-peel. Boil, drain, and arrange the quarters in a compote dish, putting the half pear on the middle. Boil the syrup till reduced to 30 degrees, pour it over the pears when cold, and serve. Compote of Pears, Princess Use nine large pears as near one size as possible. Scrape the stalks, turn the pears spirally from head to stalk, put them in a preserving-pan with a little syrup and let them simmer till tender, but not too soft. A little lemon juice squeezed in the water will keep the pears white. When done, remove the pan from the fire and leave them till cold in the syrup. Cut off the ends of the pears so as to leave about one-half inch in diameter surface at the stalk end. Cut some rings of angelica the same diameter as the cut part of the pears and put one on each. Pass some strawberries or cherries through hot syrup, then place one in each of the rings. Cut some strips of angelica and run them through the cherry and angelica rings to imitate the stalks of the pears. Arrange them in a compote dish, pour some syrup over them, and serve.
Two versions of the same idea: pears poached in sugar syrup, one tinted red and served in wedges, one left whole and dressed up with candied angelica. The vocabulary is professional pastry-kitchen French, and most of what needs translating is the syrup.
- Syrup "degrees"These are degrees Baume, read with a hydrometer, not temperatures. Sixteen degrees is a light poaching syrup, roughly 1 cup sugar dissolved in 2 cups water; thirty degrees is a heavy syrup, a little over half sugar by weight -- on the order of 1 1/2 cups sugar to 1 cup water. Without a saccharometer, poach in the light syrup and then reduce it by about half before pouring it over.
- Lined panA copper pan lined with tin. The point is that the acid and the colouring must not touch bare copper. Any nonreactive pan -- stainless or enamelled -- does the same job.
- Prepared cochinealA liquid red colouring made from cochineal insects, sold ready-diluted for confectioners. Cochineal (carmine, E120) is still produced; a few drops of any red food colouring gives the same effect, and a splash of red wine or cranberry juice in the poaching syrup will tint the fruit without dye.
- Baking pearsFirm cooking varieties that hold their shape -- Bosc is the reliable modern choice, and underripe Anjou will do. A ripe Bartlett will collapse into sauce.
- "Turn the pears spirally"A knife cut: pare the whole peeled pear in a continuous shallow spiral from the blossom end to the stalk, leaving a fluted surface. It is decorative only, and skipping it costs nothing but appearance.
- Poaching timeWhole pears in gently simmering syrup take 20 to 35 minutes depending on ripeness; the quartered pieces in the first version take 10 to 15. Test with a skewer at the thickest point and pull them while they still offer resistance -- they continue to soften as they cool in the syrup, which is why the recipe leaves them there.
- AngelicaCandied stems of Angelica archangelica, bright green and once a standard confectioner's garnish. It is now a specialist item from baking suppliers; candied citron peel or a strip of angelica-free green candied fruit substitutes visually.
- YieldThe first compote serves four to six; the Princess version uses nine pears, arranged together in one compote dish.
A compote is simply fruit cooked in sugar syrup and served in its syrup, distinct from a preserve in that it is made to be eaten within a day or two rather than stored. The technique is old and thoroughly French, and Oscar Tschirky's book -- published in 1896, when he was maitre d'hotel at the original Waldorf on Fifth Avenue -- reproduces it in the professional idiom of the hotel kitchens of the day, complete with Baume readings that assume a saccharometer on the bench. The suffix "Princess" (a la Princesse) was one of dozens of garnish names that circulated in grand-hotel cookery; in classical French usage it carried a conventional sense, though its application here is less certain, and it seems to mean that the pears are left whole and reassembled into an idealised version of themselves, with angelica standing in for the stalk. That impulse -- to cook the fruit and then rebuild it to look uncooked -- is very much of the period, and it explains why so much of the instruction concerns appearance rather than flavour.