No. 3218

Suedoise of Apples and Pears

Suedoise de Pommes et de Poires

Peel as many large apples as pears and with a tin tube take from them small sticks an inch and a quarter long by five-sixteenths of an inch in diameter; cook the apple sticks in a clear syrup and the pear ones in a syrup colored with carmine, being careful to keep them all rather firm; leave to cool off in their syrup and then drain and wipe. Coat a plain timbale mold with jelly, incrust it well in ice, take up the pear and apple sticks one by one and dip them in half-set jelly, then arrange them against the sides of the mold; on the first row lay another and so on until the mold is completely lined. Then fill it with an apple "pain" preparation, made as explained in No. 3194, substituting apples for apricots, and flavor with vanilla, incorporating into it a salpicon of preserved fruits cut in dice, selecting for this purpose, pineapples, apricots, pears and cherries cut in two; let the Suedoise harden on ice for an hour and a half. When ready to serve dip the mold hastily in hot water, unmold on a cold dish and surround the base with small ribboned jelly croutons (No. 3198).

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For the Modern Kitchen

An architectural cold dessert from the Delmonico's repertoire: a gelatin-lined mould striped with batons of poached apple and pear, filled with an apple mousse. Nothing here is difficult, but the whole thing depends on working at the right gelatin temperature.

The hinge: half-set jellyThe batons are dipped in jelly that is syrupy but not yet firm — roughly the consistency of raw egg white. Too warm and it runs off and the sticks slide; too cool and it sets in lumps that ruin the pattern. Keep the bowl of jelly over tepid water and the mould buried in ice so each dipped piece grips on contact.
"Incrust it well in ice"Pack the mould to its rim in a bowl of crushed ice mixed with coarse salt, which drops the temperature below freezing point. A freezer will do the same job, but you lose the ability to see and reach the work; if you use one, do the lining in short stages.
Jelly means gelatinA clear wine or fruit aspic set with sheet or powdered gelatin, firm enough to unmould — around 2 teaspoons of powdered gelatin per cup of liquid for the coating, which needs to hold a vertical wall. Ranhofer's jellies were made in the house, from calf's foot, isinglass or the commercial gelatine of his day.
The batonsAn inch and a quarter by five-sixteenths of an inch is about 3 cm by 8 mm. A small apple corer, a column cutter, or a sharp knife will give the shape; firm pears and a dense apple such as Braeburn hold up best. Poach in plain syrup only until barely translucent, well short of tender, or they will collapse when dipped.
CarmineCochineal-derived carmine, still sold as a food colour; a few drops of red food colouring, or poaching the pear batons in red wine or hibiscus, will give the pink instead. The point is contrast between the two fruits, not the specific dye.
The apple "pain"No. 3194 is an apricot pain — a fruit puree lightened with whipped cream and set with a little gelatin. Substituting thick, well-reduced apple puree means keeping it dry; watery apple sauce will not set cleanly and will bleed into the lining.
SalpiconA salpicon is simply an even small dice. Candied or preserved pineapple, apricot, pear and halved cherries, blotted dry of syrup, folded in at the moment the mousse begins to thicken so the pieces stay suspended.
UnmouldingA one- to two-second dip in hot water, then invert immediately. Any longer and the jelly coat melts and the stripes smear.

A Little History

A suédoise in nineteenth-century French pastry meant a moulded cold dessert of fruit — usually apples or pears — set in jelly and turned out whole; the name means simply "Swedish", and the association is traditional rather than documented, generally traced to the northern taste for cooked-fruit compotes. Charles Ranhofer, who ran the kitchens at Delmonico's in New York and published The Epicurean in 1894, gives it among the cold entremets, the sweet course that came near the end of a long service and was expected to be looked at before it was eaten. That is why the recipe spends most of its words on geometry: a striped, tube-lined mould of pink pear and pale apple was a display piece produced by a brigade with ice, moulds and time, and it belongs to the same impulse as the aspic-glazed galantines on the savoury side of the book.