No. 3551

Esmeralda Ice Cream

Glace a l'Esmeralda

Mix one pint of strawberry pulp, three pints of cream, three quarters of a one pound of sugar; strain through a fine sieve, freeze and stir in as much whipped cream (No. 50). Pound four ounces of burnt almonds with a quarter of a vanilla bean and half a gill of cream; put into a basin six egg-yolks and five ounces of sugar; dilute with half a pint of boiling milk and cook on a slow fire without boiling; cool and add a pint of cream and a little orange flower water; freeze. Stir in an ounce and a half of the finely pounded burnt almonds and an ounce and a half of shredded pistachios. Fill a pyramid-shaped mold made in two separate longitudinal divisions, half with the strawberry and the other half with the burnt almond preparation; freeze for half an hour, unmold and on top place an apricot steeped in prunelle cherries.

← No. 3550 Eggs a la Tremontaine, Red Wine Sauce Ices & Ice Creams No. 3552 Frascati Ice Cream →

For the Modern Kitchen

Two separate ice creams frozen side by side in a divided mold — a bombe in pyramid form. Ranhofer assumes a professional pastry kitchen with an ice-and-salt freezer, a marble slab and a stock of prepared components.

The measuresA gill is half a cup, so half a gill of cream is 1/4 cup. "Three quarters of a one pound of sugar" is 12 ounces by weight, about 1 3/4 cups. The recipe as written produces at least three quarts of finished ice cream, more once the whipped cream is folded in; halve everything for a home machine.
Burnt almondsThese are almonds cooked in caramelized sugar and cooled hard. Four ounces are pounded but only an ounce and a half is stirred into the custard; the recipe does not say what becomes of the remainder. Pound them fine or they will freeze into gravel.
Cook the custard to a numberCook the custard gently -- "On a slow fire without boiling" describes a stirred custard cooked until it coats the back of a spoon; modern practice puts that at roughly 175-180F, with the yolks beginning to curdle not far above. Ranhofer gives no number - the instruction not to boil is the hinge of that half of the dish.
No. 50The cross-reference is Ranhofer's whipped cream. Fold it in after the strawberry base has frozen to a soft, stiff stage. It lightens the texture toward a mousse and is what distinguishes this from a straight strawberry ice.
Orange flower waterStrength varies widely between brands and some modern distillates are very assertive. Start with a quarter teaspoon in the whole custard and taste; too much reads as soap.
PrunelleA sloe liqueur, still made in France. The text, "an apricot steeped in prunelle cherries," is ambiguous, but it reads as a liqueur-steeped garnish rather than anything cooked; any good stone-fruit liqueur stands in.
The mold and the timingA two-part longitudinal pyramid mold is a specialist item; a loaf pan with a stiff cardboard or metal divider down the middle, removed once both sides are packed, gives the same two-tone section. Half an hour to set assumes a salt-and-ice cave at around 0F or a little below. In a domestic freezer allow four hours, and dip the mold briefly in warm water to unmold.
Strawberry pulpSieved raw strawberry purée, not cooked. Use ripe fruit and taste for sugar before freezing; cold blunts sweetness, so the base should taste slightly too sweet at room temperature.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchens at Delmonico's in New York, in two spells, for more than thirty years, and The Epicurean (1894) is his attempt to set down the whole repertoire, at least 3,500 numbered recipes deep. The ices section is where the restaurant's showmanship is most visible: bombes and pyramids named for operas, singers and stage characters, built in two colors. Esmeralda is the dancer of Hugo's Notre-Dame de Paris, familiar to nineteenth-century audiences chiefly through the ballet and the operas drawn from the novel — here the pistachio-flecked almond half against the strawberry. Burnt-almond ice cream, a praline custard, was a standing favorite of the period, and pairing it with fresh fruit pulp let a kitchen serve something rich and something bright in the same slice.