No. 3595

Pineapple in Surprise and Pineapple Molded

Ananas en Surprise et Ananas Moule

In Surprise.-Suppress the stalk from a fine pineapple; empty it out entirely and pack it in ice for one hour. With the inside of the fruit make a pineapple water ice (No. 3606), mixing into it a salpicon of fresh fruits; fill the pineapple and freeze it once more; dress on a napkin and surround with small molded peaches decorated with a stalk and slightly colored over.

Molded.-They can also be molded in a pineapple-shaped mold, the top or stalk to be made of pistachio cream (No. 3454) and the pineapple in Andalusian ice cream (No. 3446), colored a reddish yellow. Cut the best pieces from a small pineapple into quarter-inch squares; steep them in kirsch and maraschino for one hour, add pieces of biscuit and macaroons, drain and with this preparation fill the inside of the pineapple. Imbed in ice and freeze for an hour and a half, unmold and dress on a water socle, serving at once.

← No. 3594 Hen with Chicks; Nest with Eggs (poule Avec Molded Ices & Large Pieces No. 3596 Rabbit in Surprise →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer assumes a brigade, a cross-referenced set of base recipes and a working ice cave. The dish reduces to two ideas: a hollowed pineapple refilled with its own water ice, or a pineapple-shaped mold of two ice creams filled with liqueur-steeped fruit and crumbled biscuit.

The hinge: chill the shell hardThe hollowed pineapple must be very cold before it is filled, or the water ice softens against a warmer wall. Ranhofer packs it in ice for an hour; a freezer will do the same job. He then says only to "freeze it once more" before serving, without giving a time.
"Suppress the stalk"Cut off the leafy crown and scoop the flesh out through the opening; Ranhofer says to empty the fruit "entirely" and gives no wall thickness. He does not say the crown is replaced at service: the finished pineapple is dressed on a napkin and surrounded by small molded peaches, and it is those peaches that are given a stalk.
"Pack it in ice"In 1894 this meant burying the shell in a tub of ice, with salt added when a temperature below freezing point was wanted; an ice-and-salt mixture will go well below 32F. A domestic freezer stands in for both the chilling and the final "imbed in ice and freeze."
SalpiconNot a sauce here but a fine dice: fruit cut into small even cubes, about quarter-inch, folded through the finished ice. Fold it in at the end of churning so the pieces stay suspended.
The cross-referencesNo. 3606 is the pineapple water ice, No. 3446 the Andalusian ice cream and No. 3454 the pistachio cream; the recipe gives no details of how they are made. Any good sorbet and ice cream recipe stands in.
Kirsch and maraschinoAlcohol depresses the freezing point, so drain the steeped pineapple thoroughly before it goes into the mold and use the strained liqueur elsewhere. Too much carried over and the center never sets.
Water socleA pedestal carved or cast from a block of ice, used to keep the piece cold on the table. A shallow tray of crushed ice under a folded napkin serves the same purpose without the carving.
YieldA large pineapple filled this way gives six to eight portions; cut it in wedges through the shell at the table. Serve immediately, as the shell warms faster than the ice inside it.

A Little History

This comes from the "Molded Ices & Large Pieces" section of Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894), a record of thirty-odd years running the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York. "En surprise" is a period usage for a dish with hidden contents, returned to the table in the shape of the thing it was made from, so that the guest sees a whole pineapple and finds ice inside; neighbouring recipes in the same section are given over to hens, nests of eggs and rabbits. Pineapple was a plausible showpiece for such a restaurant precisely because it was still expensive in the Northeast, and it kept the older symbolic weight of hospitality and display it had carried since the eighteenth century. The numbered cross-references throughout are the book's method: Ranhofer wrote for professionals who needed only the assembly.