No. 3603

Guanabana, Melon, Medlar, Pear or Plum Water Ice

Glace a l'Eau a la Guanabane, au Melon, aux Nefles, Poires ou Prunes

Select fruits that are ripe, having them in preference a little too hard than too soft; they must be fragrant and freshly plucked. Suppress the skins or peels with a knife; press first through a sieve, then through a tammy; put the puree in a vessel, allowing for each quart one pint of cold syrup, the juice of two oranges and four lemons and the peel of half an orange infused in a gill of syrup. Stir all the ingredients well together and bring it to a twenty to twenty-two degree syrup; strain through a very fine Venice or silk sieve and pour into a semi-spherical freezer: allow it to congeal without ceasing to detach with a large spatula every particle adhering to the sides of the freezer. As soon as the ice is all congealed remove it with a spoon and transfer to a small, long freezer imbedded in salted ice to have it acquire plenty of body, and smooth while still stirring; lastly incorporate three tablespoonfuls of good rum, kirsch or prunelle, mixed with a little of the syrup and frozen preparation, being careful to incorporate it little by little; work again for a few moments, freeze once more and serve.

← No. 3602 Fresh Fruit Water Ices Molded Ices & Large Pieces No. 3604 Lemon Water Ice and Grape Fruit Ice →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer gives one formula for five very different fruits, and assumes a cook with a saccharometer, a copper sorbetière and a supply of block ice. The translation is mostly a matter of sugar density and equipment.

The hinge: syrup density"A twenty to twenty-two degree syrup" is almost certainly degrees Baume, read on a saccharometer or hydrometer, though Ranhofer does not name the scale here. That range works out to roughly 36 to 40 percent sugar by weight, sweeter than most modern sorbet formulas: too little sugar and the ice freezes hard and grainy, too much and it never sets. Check the finished, strained puree with a refractometer or syrup hydrometer and adjust with more cold syrup or more fruit juice rather than guessing.
Gill and quartA gill is half a cup. "For each quart" of puree, one pint of cold syrup, so the base is two parts fruit to one part syrup before the citrus goes in.
Tammy and Venice sieveA tammy is a worsted or linen straining cloth; a Venice sieve is a very fine gauze sieve, which Ranhofer lists alongside a silk one. A chinois followed by a doubled layer of cheesecloth or a fine nylon sieve does both jobs. The double straining matters for fibrous fruit like soursop, which is stringy enough to ruin the texture.
Guanabana, nefles, prunelleGuanabana is soursop (Annona muricata), sold frozen as pulp in Latin and Caribbean groceries. Nefles could mean either the European medlar or the loquat, the "nefle du Japon"; the true medlar is mouth-puckeringly astringent until bletted to a soft brown, which sits awkwardly with the instruction to choose fruit a little too hard rather than too soft. Prunelle is a sloe liqueur, closest today to sloe gin or a French prunelle de Bourgogne.
Freezing without a sorbetiereThe semi-spherical freezer set in salted ice and scraped constantly with a spatula is doing what a modern churn does. An ice cream machine covers that first stage; the second "long freezer imbedded in salted ice" step is further working and firming, and a domestic freezer at 0F will firm the ice over two to three hours.
The alcohol goes in last, and stays smallThree tablespoons of rum, kirsch or prunelle per batch is close to the practical ceiling. Alcohol depresses the freezing point sharply, so adding it early or generously leaves a slush that never firms. Ranhofer's "little by little" into an already frozen base is the right method.
Yield and servingA quart of puree plus a pint of syrup and the citrus gives roughly three pints of finished ice, twelve to fourteen small servings. Water ices of this kind were served in small glasses or molded, either as a mid-meal refresher or as the cold sweet at the end.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years as chef at Delmonico's, and this entry shows how far the restaurant's larder reached: soursop from the Caribbean trade alongside melon, pear, plum and the half-forgotten medlar, all handled by one interchangeable formula. Water ices, glaces a l'eau, were the French professional's dairy-free counterpart to ice cream, and their quality is often said to have depended less on a recipe as such than on the sugar density of the syrup, which is why the fruit is left open. The instruction to spike the finished ice with rum, kirsch or prunelle is the standard nineteenth-century restaurant flourish.