Fruit recipes

Pare and core three large juicy pippins and slice them into a pitcher or crock with the grated rind of a lemon. On this pour one pint of boiling water, then cover close and let stand four hours. Strain and sweeten with loaf sugar. THE APPLE 47 APPLE TEA Roast very tart apples and pour over them boiling water, letting stand till the water is cold. This may be sweetened a little if sugar is permitted. APPLE BRANDY, OR POMONA WINE To six gallons of new cider add one gallon of brandy and let stand from eight months to a year before racking off. To make Apple Jack or Cider Brandy distill the cider alone. CRAB-APPLE CHAMPAGNE Crush fruit as for apple cider and proceed as for cider making, but let the verjuice (or crab-apple juice) stand without the mustard seed or other means for keeping it from getting ‘‘hard.’’ At the end of two or three years the verjuice has become very similar to champagne. APPLE WATER ICES These may be made by more than one method. Simmer till tender a quart of apples, pared and cored; when cold put through a sieve. Have ready a syrup made according to Introductory Recipes, using one and a half pints; mix- ing with the strained apple and juice of two lemons. Freeze. Or the apple may be added to plain cider instead of to a syrup or the cider itself frozen, flavouring as liked. Preserved or stewed apples may be frozen by packing in salt and ice five or six hours, or apple sauce, thick and flavoured with lemon or sherry, may be frozen. The sauce may be thinned as first directed and a softened tablespoon of gelatine added just as the apples are removed from the fire, stirring it till dissolved. This gives the mousse effect. 48 FRUIT RECIPES BAKED APPLE ICE CREAM Pare, core, and quarter ten tart apples, baking with sugar and lemon or spice (see Baked Apples). When cold add one quart rich milk and cream, scalded and cooled, and freeze. FROZEN APPLE CUSTARD Make the custard as for Apple Custard Pie, using either one pint of apple sauce or one pint of grated apple, and whipping in the stiff whites of the eggs after the custard is partially frozen. FROZEN APPLE SNOW Make as for Apple Snow, adding for each pint of snow one pint of mixed milk and cream and a trifle more sugar. CHAPTER II THE PEAR (Pyrus communis: Malacee) HE Pyrus communis, or common pear, ranks close to the apple in point of family, of abundance, lati- tudinal range and general utility. The wild pear grows throughout Europe and Asia, its branches thorny; its small, hard fruit not considered edible. But from very early times the bristling little wild tree or bushy shrub has taken kindly to cultivation. The Greeks and Romans seem to have availed themselves of this susceptibility and the legions of the latter introduced the pear into Britain. Whether grafted on quince, the mountain ash (the rowan), or wild pear stock, it flourished and now the vast majority of pears do not deserve the epithet “insipid’’ even yet not infrequently applied by the thoughtless who judge all by the few exceptions or by those pears intended by na- ture for cooking only. : There are stores of riches in the grape sugar contained in this fruit, in its proportion of iron, in its moderate per cent. of malic, tannic, and tartaric acids, its albumen, lime, pectin, mucilage, and its relatively large proportion of potash and phosphoric acid and toothsome juiciness, the quantity and pure quality of which last ‘distilled water,” should tempt one to make up for the water one should but which one does not drink copiously enough in simple form. Such general mildness of tonic properties agrees with al- most any type of stomach and the laxative quality has a properly stimulating effect upon the intestines. The pear may be used in almost as many forms and in 49 50 FRUIT RECIPES