No. 3522

Andalusian Sherbet

Sorbet Andalouse

Trim some fine orange peel to represent baskets (Fig. 656); scallop their borders with the punch shown in Fig. 654; decorate with narrow ribbons and freeze for one hour in a freezing box. Squeeze out the juice of four oranges and two lemons; place this in a vessel, add the peel of half an orange, two drops of extract of bitter orange and two drops of the extract of lemon; bring the composition to twenty-two degrees; strain through a fine sieve and freeze. When frozen mix in one gill of Curacoa and as much kirsch; fill the orange peel baskets and serve at once.

← No. 3521 American Sherbet Ices & Ice Creams No. 3523 Californian Sherbet →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer assumes a professional larder: a saccharometer, a working ice cave, and a set of tinned pastry punches. The whole thing translates, but two of his measurements need attention before you begin.

"Twenty-two degrees" means syrup densityThis is a reading on the saccharometer (a syrup-density scale, most likely Baume), not a temperature; you are being told to sweeten the strained citrus juice until it reaches that density, which is in the region of a forty-per-cent sugar solution by weight. A hydrometer is the only way to hit it exactly, but sweetening to just past the point where the mixture tastes cloying at room temperature is close, since cold blunts sweetness.
A gill is half a cup — and two of them is too muchA gill is half a cup -- and two of them is a lot -- One gill of curacao plus one gill of kirsch is a full cup of spirits in a sherbet built on the juice of six fruits. Note that Ranhofer stirs them in after the mixture is frozen, so they soften an already-set ice rather than preventing it from freezing at all; even so, at that ratio the result will be nearer a slush than a firm sherbet, and he served it at once from a salt-and-ice freezer. In a domestic machine, a tablespoon or two of each is the practical limit.
The freezing boxA lidded metal box or mould packed round with cracked ice and rock salt, used to harden and hold frozen work (the churn proper is the sorbetiere). The hour of freezing given for the orange baskets appears to be simply chilling them hard so they do not weep or soften under the ice -- your freezer does this better, and they can sit overnight.
Extract of bitter orangeA concentrated flavouring made from bitter, Seville-type oranges, sold in the period alongside lemon extract. Bitter orange extract is still made for bar and pastry use; two drops is genuinely two drops, and the flavour is aggressive enough that overshooting turns the sherbet medicinal.
The punch and the figuresFig. 654 is a small cutter used to scallop pastry and fruit borders; the figure references are to plates in the original volume, which the text does not reproduce. Any small fluted cutter, or a paring knife worked in shallow arcs, gives the same edge.
Hollowing the basketsHalve the oranges across the equator, juice them, then work a spoon around the inside to lift out the membrane cleanly before trimming the rim. A ragged interior shows through pale sherbet.
Churn cold, serve immediatelyCitrus sherbet with this much liquor in it holds its texture for minutes, not hours. Fill the shells only when the table is ready; the alcohol keeps softening the sherbet from the moment it leaves the machine.
YieldFour oranges and two lemons, once sweetened, give something on the order of a pint to a pint and a half of finished sherbet -- roughly the six to eight filled half-shells, which is a course-between-courses portion rather than a dessert.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's account of his decades as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and its sherbet chapter reflects a specific piece of service etiquette: at a long formal dinner a small iced sorbet, usually spiked with liqueur, arrived partway through the meal to reset the palate before the roast. That is why these recipes are so lightly sweetened, so heavily fortified, and served in a hollowed fruit rather than a dish — they were meant to be dispatched in a few spoonfuls, standing between courses rather than closing the meal. The Andalusian name points at the citrus rather than at any Spanish original; bitter oranges are generally associated with Seville, and nineteenth-century French kitchen nomenclature routinely attached a region to a garnish or flavouring in this way, as with à la portugaise for tomato. The numbered neighbours in the same section, American and Californian sherbet, show the same habit applied closer to home.