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Coupe St. Andre
Prepare a pint (only) of vanilla ice cream.
Cut in dice-pieces one peeled and cored sound pear, one slice of fresh peeled and cored pineapple, half a skinned banana, six stoned maraschino cherries, half a preserved peach and half a peeled orange. Place these in a bowl with two tablespoons sugar, one teaspoon rum, one teaspoon kirsch and a teaspoon curacao. Mix well, evenly divide the mixed fruits into six punch glasses, then fill up with the vanilla ice cream and serve.
A composed fruit cup of the sort that closed a formal dinner in the years around 1900. Nothing here is difficult; the only real decisions are how long to macerate the fruit and how cold to keep everything.
- YieldSix small servings, as the recipe says, but they are genuinely small: a pint of ice cream split six ways is roughly a third of a cup each. For a modern dessert portion, plan on four glasses rather than six, or double everything.
- "Punch glasses"Stemmed glasses of about 4 to 5 ounces, the same vessels used for cup and punch service. Coupe glasses, small wine glasses or squat tumblers all work. Chill them in the freezer for twenty minutes before assembling.
- Macerate, then drainThe two tablespoons of sugar plus three teaspoons of liqueur will draw a surprising amount of juice from the pear, pineapple and orange within half an hour. Give the fruit 30 to 60 minutes in the refrigerator, then lift it into the glasses with a slotted spoon and spoon a little of the syrup over rather than tipping all the liquid in, or the ice cream will slump into a pink soup.
- The liqueursCuracao here means the orange liqueur, not necessarily the blue bottling; triple sec or Grand Marnier is the same idea. Kirsch is clear cherry brandy and is not interchangeable with maraschino syrup. Three teaspoons total across six glasses is a flavour accent, not a spike.
- Preserved peachA peach put up in heavy syrup. Canned peach halves in syrup are the direct equivalent; drain them or the dish turns cloying, since there is already added sugar.
- PineappleFresh pineapple contains bromelain, a protein-digesting enzyme that can make dairy taste bitter if the two stand together. Best to assemble and serve promptly once the ice cream meets the fruit.
- Ice creamThe parenthetical 'only' suggests the quantity is deliberately held down, though the recipe still has the ice cream filling the glasses. Let a firm modern pint sit out three or four minutes so it can be spooned into a small glass without crushing the fruit beneath it.
- BananasThe recipe mixes everything at once; if you macerate the fruit for any length of time, cutting the banana last and turning it in the sugar and orange juice will slow browning.