No. 3695

Stewed Strawberries and Raspberries and Strawberry and Raspberry Jam

Compote de Fraises et de Framboises et Marmelade de Fraises et de Framboises

Pick some fine not too ripe strawberries or raspberries; cook some syrup to "ball," throw in the berries and pour the whole at once carefully into a vessel to leave till cold. Drain and arrange on a compote dish; pour part of the syrup over and serve.

Strawberry and Raspberry Jam.—Choose two pounds of sound, ripe strawberries or raspberries, remove the stalks and leaves. Either crush or pass them through a sieve. Have an untinned copper basin (Fig. 140), place the berries in it, reduce to half, remove the basin from the fire, then add a pound and a half of sugar cooked to "small crack" (No. 171). Put on the fire again, then stir continually until reduced sufficiently to see the bottom of the basin; now pour it in glasses or jars which have been heated; when the jam is cold cover with small rounds of paper, dipped in brandy, and close the jars or glasses hermetically and keep in a cool, dry place.

SALTED ALMONDS, CHEESES AND FRESH FRUITS (Amandes Salees, Fromages et Fruits Frais).

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For the Modern Kitchen

Two preparations in one entry: a quick compote in which raw berries are macerated in hot syrup, and a reduced jam finished with sugar cooked to a hard stage. Both hinge on candy-thermometer work that Ranhofer expected his readers to know by name.

The sugar stages, in numbers"Ball" is roughly 240-248F (soft to firm ball); "small crack" (petit cassé) is about 275-280F. Ranhofer's own table at No. 171 is the reference he cites; the figures above are the standard modern equivalents and are close enough for both preparations.
Untinned copperAn unlined copper preserving basin was standard because copper spreads heat evenly, and it was traditionally held that the bare metal helped the set. Brief cooking of a heavily sugared acid mixture in bare copper is the traditional practice, but never let the jam cool or stand in the pan. A wide stainless or enamelled pan does the job with no caveats.
Reduce first, then sugarThe order matters. The crushed fruit is boiled down to half its volume before any sugar goes in, which concentrates flavour and pectin; sugar added at the start raises the boiling point and lengthens the cooking.
Judging the set"Reduced sufficiently to see the bottom of the basin" means the mixture parts around the spoon and closes slowly. In degrees that is about 220F at sea level, or a wrinkle on a spoonful chilled on a cold plate.
Strawberry versus raspberryRaspberries are high in pectin and acid and will set readily. Strawberries are low in both and take longer, or benefit from a little lemon juice — a substitution Ranhofer does not make but which explains why strawberry jam so often disappoints.
The brandy paper and storageRounds of paper dipped in brandy, laid on the surface once the jam has gone cold, were the nineteenth-century mould barrier, used in place of heat processing. It works reasonably well but is not a seal by current standards. Treat the jars as refrigerator jam, or process filled jars in a boiling-water bath if you want shelf storage.
The compoteBerries chosen deliberately underripe hold their shape when the ball-stage syrup goes over them; ripe fruit collapses to mush. The fruit is never boiled — it cooks only in the residual heat of the syrup as everything cools together.
YieldTwo pounds of fruit with a pound and a half of sugar gives roughly three to four half-pint jars, depending on how far the jam is reduced. The compote quantity is left to the cook.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's summing-up of some thirty years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and its preserving chapter reads like a professional pastry office rather than a farmhouse kitchen: everything is keyed to the sugar-boiling table at No. 171, and the equipment is specified down to the figure number of the copper basin. The unlined bassine à confiture, wide and shallow with flared sides, was the standard French preserving vessel and is still made; its shape exposes maximum surface for evaporation, which is generally said to be why the jam sets by reduction rather than by long boiling. Sealing hot jars and covering the cooled surface with brandy-soaked paper is well attested in period books on both sides of the Atlantic — the alcohol discouraged the surface moulds that were the chief enemy of preserves before reliable vacuum sealing. The compote, meanwhile, belongs to the dessert service: it appears here alongside salted almonds, cheeses and fresh fruit, the closing items of a Delmonico's menu.