No. 2994

Apples Browned

Pommes Gratinees

Have about fifteen nice small apples; empty the centers with a half-inch in diameter column box tube; peel and pare them round, then blanch in acidulated water, keeping them whole. Drain and fill the hollow centers with frangipane cream (No. 44), finished with a whole egg. Range the apples in a baking dish, pour over some apricot and vanilla syrup, and put them for half an hour in a slack oven, basting over frequently to finish cooking and glaze. At the last moment spread on the bottom of a vegetable dish a thick layer of vanilla cream rice (No. 160), having it very soft; remove the apples one by one with a palette knife and dress them on the rice, pressing them down slightly; close the middle hole with a half-sugared cherry, or with a round piece of greengage half an inch in diameter. Bestrew over with finely chopped and sifted almonds mixed with sugar; brush the surface lightly with butter, then brown for a few moments under a salamander (Fig. 123), or in a hot oven, until a fine color is attained, then serve at once.

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For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a brigade with numbered base preparations on hand, so the work here is mostly assembly. The hinge is the blanching: the apples must be cooked just enough to hold their shape through half an hour of basting and a final pass under the heat.

The corerA "half-inch in diameter column box tube" is a straight-sided column cutter. Any corer of about half an inch works, but push straight through so the walls stay even; a tapered one leaves the base too thin to sit on the rice.
Blanching in acidulated waterWater with a good squeeze of lemon, brought to a bare simmer. Firm apples that hold their shape — Braeburn, Golden Delicious, Calville if you can find them — are wanted here. Take them out while still resistant at the center; they finish in the oven.
Slack ovenAround 300F. The recipe has the half hour finishing the cooking and glazing at once; since the apples are already blanched, the low heat matters.
Frangipane cream, No. 44Ranhofer's frangipane is a cooked, flour-based cream enriched with almonds, not the raw almond-and-butter filling sold under that name today. Bound with a whole egg it sets firm enough to hold when the apple is lifted.
Vanilla cream rice, No. 160Short-grain rice cooked slowly in sweetened vanilla milk until it collapses. "Very soft" is literal — it should spread like a thick custard and take the impression of the apples pressed into it.
Apricot and vanilla syrupSieved apricot jam let down with a little water or sugar syrup and vanilla. Baste frequently, as the recipe directs; the sugar is what builds the glaze.
GreengageA small green-gold European plum, often preserved or candied. Candied cherry or a disc of any glace fruit fills the hole equally well; the point is to cap the frangipane.
SalamanderAn overhead radiant grill. A modern broiler on high does the same job — a minute or two, watched, since the almond and sugar crust colors fast and burns immediately after.
YieldFifteen small apples served on one platter of rice will feed eight to ten as a dessert course.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchens at Delmonico's in New York for over thirty years, and The Epicurean (1894) is essentially that restaurant's working repertory set down in a single volume of some twelve hundred pages, cross-referenced by number so that a cook could chase a garnish or a cream back to its base recipe. Pommes gratinrench ttradition of stuffed baked apples dressed on a bed of sweetened rice iled under pommes ", the name generally attached to any fruit arranged on vanilla rice. The construction is thoroughly of its moment: nothing on the plate is left plain, and the whole thing depends on a kitchen already holding frangipane, rice, apricot syrup and candied fruit in reserve, which is exactly the economy a large hotel restaurant of the 1890s was built on.