Jewish Cook Book - Fresh Fruit & Compote

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Fresh Fruits and Compote
Always select the best fruit, as it is the cheapest, and requires less sugar; and where every piece of fruit or every berry is perfect, there is no waste. Raspberries are apt to harbor worms and therefore the freshly picked berries are safest.

Blueberries
Wash and pick over carefully, drain off all the water, sprinkle powdered sugar over them and serve with cream or milk.

Raspberries
Pick over carefully, set on ice, and serve in a dish unsugared. Strawberries may be served as above.

Raspberries and currants
These berries, mixed, make a very palatable dish. Set on ice until ready to serve. Then pile in a mound, strewing plenty of pulverized sugar among them. As you do this, garnish the base with white or black currants (blackberries look pretty also) in bunches. Eat with cream or wine.

Strawberries
Pick nice ripe berries, pile them in a fruit dish. Strew plenty of pulverized sugar over them and garnish with round slices or quarters of oranges, also well sugared.

Bananas
May be sliced according to fancy, either round or lengthwise. Set on ice until required. Then add sugar, wine or orange juice. In serving, dish out with a tablespoon of whipped cream.

Chilled bananas
Cut ice-cold bananas down lengthwise, and lay these halves on a plate with a quarter of a lemon and a generous teaspoon of powdered sugar. Eat with a fork or spoon after sprinkling with lemon juice and dipping in sugar.

Grape fruit
Cut in half, with a sharp knife, remove seeds, and sprinkle with sugar, or loosen pulp; cut out pithy white centre; wipe knife after each cutting, so that the bitter taste may be avoided. Pour in white wine or sherry and sprinkle with powdered sugar, and let stand several hours in ice-chest to ripen. Serve cold in the shell. Decorate with maraschino cherry.

Oranges
Cut an orange in half crosswise. Place on an attractive dish, scoop out the juice and pulp with a spoon and sweeten if necessary.

Pineapple
Peel the pineapple, dig out all the eyes, then cut from the core downward, or chop in a chopping-bowl, and set on ice until ready to serve. Then sugar the fruit well, and form into a mound in a dish. Garnish the base well with leaves or small fruit of any kind. You may squeeze the juice of one orange over all.

Peaches
Peel fine, ripe freestone peaches. Cover plentifully with pulverized sugar, and serve with whipped cream. The cream should be ice cold. Peaches should not be sliced until just before dining, or they will be very apt to change color.

Watermelons
Use only those melons that are perfectly ripe. Do not select those that are very large in circumference; a rough melon with a bumpy surface is the best. Either cut in half or plug and fill with the following: Put on to boil some pale sherry or claret and boil down to quite a thick syrup with sugar. Pour this into either a plugged melon or over the half-cut melon, and lay on ice for a couple of hours before serving. If you use claret you may spice it while boiling with whole spices.

Snowflakes
Grate a large cocoanut into a fruit dish, and mix it thoroughly and lightly with pulverised sugar. Serve with whipped or plain sweet cream.

Tutti-frutti
Slice oranges, bananas, pineapples and arrange in a glass-bowl; sprinkle with pulverized sugar, and serve either with wine or cream. You may use both.

Ripe tomatoes
Select nice, large, well-shaped tomatoes, pare, slice and put on ice. When ready to serve sprinkle each layer thickly with pulverized sugar.

Pineapple soufflé
Take a nice ripe pineapple, grate it and sweeten to taste. Beat the whites of two eggs stiff and mix with the pineapple. Before serving, whip half a pint of cream and put on the pineapple.

Frosted apples
Pare and core six large apples. Cover with one pint of water and three tablespoons of sugar; simmer until tender. Remove from the syrup and drain. Wash the parings and let simmer with a little water for one-half hour. Beat the white of one egg to a stiff froth and add one tablespoon of sugar. Coat the top of the apples lightly with the meringue and place in a cool oven to dry. Strain the juice from the parings, add two tablespoons of sugar, return to the fire and let boil for five minutes; add a few drops of lemon juice and a little nutmeg, cool and pour around the apples.

Apple float
Peel six big apples and slice them. Put them in a saucepan with just enough water to cover them and cook until tender. Then put them through a colander and add the grated rind and juice of half a lemon, sweeten to taste and stir in a trace of nutmeg. Fold in the stiffly beaten whites of four eggs and put the dish on ice. Serve with whipped or plain cream.

Apple delight
Put a layer of apple sauce in a buttered pudding dish, dot with butter, add a layer of chopped peaches and apricots, sprinkle with blanched almonds ground rather coarsely, repeat until the pan is full; pour the peach juice over the mixture and bake for one hour.

Apple compote
Take six apples ("Greenings," "Baldwins" or "Bellflowers"), pare, quarter, core and lay them in cold water as soon as pared. Then take the parings and seeds, put in a dish with a cup of water and a cup of white wine, and boil for about fifteen minutes. Strain through a fine sieve, then put on to boil again, and add half a cup of white sugar and the peel of half a lemon. Put in the apples and let them stew for fifteen minutes longer. When the apples are tender, take up each piece carefully with a silver spoon and lay on a platter to cool. Let the syrup boil down to about half the quantity you had after removing the apples, and add to it the juice of half a lemon. Lay your apples in a fruit dish, pyramid shape, pour the syrup over them, serve.

Baked apples
Take large, juicy apples, wash and core them well, fill each place that you have cored with brown sugar, cinnamon and raisins, and put a clove in each apple. Lay them in a deep dish, pour a teacup of water in the dish, and put a little sugar on top of each apple. When well done the apples will be broken. Then remove them carefully to the dish they are to be served in and pour the syrup over them. To be eaten cold. If you wish them extra nice, glaze them with the beaten white of an egg, half a cup of pulverized sugar and serve with whipped cream.

Steamed sweet apples
For this dish use sweet apples, and steam in a closely covered iron pot for three-quarters of an hour.

Quarter and core five apples without paring. Put into the pot and melt beef drippings; when hot, lay a layer of apples in, skin down, sprinkle with brown sugar, and when nearly done, turn and brown; place on a platter and sprinkle with sugar.

Fried apples
Quarter and core five apples without paring. Put into a frying-pan one cup of sugar, one tablespoon of butter and three tablespoons of water. Let this melt and lay in the apples with the skin up. Cover and fry slowly until brown.

Apple sauce Victoria
Pare, quarter and core the apples. Set on to boil in cold water, and boil them over a very brisk fire; when they are soft mash with a potato masher and pass the mashed apples through a sieve. Sweeten to taste and flavor with a teaspoon of vanilla. This way of seasoning apples is highly recommended, especially if they are tasteless.

Peach compote
Pare the fruit, leave it whole and put on to boil with sweetened water. Add a few cloves (remove the heads), also a stick of cinnamon bark. Boil the peaches until tender, then take up with a perforated skimmer and lay them in your fruit dish. Boil the syrup until thick, then pour over the peaches. Eat cold with sweet cream. Common cheap peaches make a very nice dessert, cooked in the above manner, clings especially, which cannot be used to cut up.

Compote of raspberries
Make a syrup of half a pound of sugar and half a cup of water, put into it one quart of berries which have been carefully picked and washed. Boil up once. Serve cold.

Compote of pineapple
Cut off the rind of a pineapple, core and trim out all the eyes. Cut into desired slices. Set on to boil with half a pound of sugar, and the juice of one or two tart oranges. When the pineapple is tender and clear, put into a compote dish and boil the syrup until clear. Pour over all and cool. The addition of a wineglass of brandy improves this compote very much.

Compote of pears
It is not necessary to take a fine quality of pears for this purpose. Pare the fruit, leaving on the stems, and stew in sugar and a very little water. Flavor with stick cinnamon and a few cloves (take out the head of each clove) and when soft place each pear carefully on a platter until cold. Then arrange them nicely in a glass bowl or flat glass dish, the stems all on the outer rim. Pour over them the sauce, which should be boiled thick like syrup. Eat cold.

Huckleberry compote
Pick over a quart of huckleberries or blueberries, wash them and set to boil. Do not add any water to them. Sweeten with half a cup of sugar, and spice with half a teaspoon of cinnamon. Just before removing from the fire, add a teaspoon of cornstarch which has been wet with a little cold water. Do this thoroughly in a cup and stir with a teaspoon so as not to have any lumps in it. Pour into a glass bowl. Eat cold.

Rhubarb sauce
Strip the skin off the stalks with care, cut them into small pieces, put into a saucepan with very little water, and stew slowly until soft. Sweeten while hot, but do not boil the sugar with the fruit. Eat cold. Very wholesome.

Baked rhubarb
Peel and cut into two-inch lengths three bunches of rhubarb. Dredge with flour and put in baking dish with one cup of sugar sprinkled over. Bake in moderate oven three-quarters of an hour. Very nice served hot as a vegetable, or cold as a sauce.

Fig sauce
Stew figs slowly for two hours, until soft; sweeten with loaf sugar, about two tablespoons to a pound of fruit; add a glass of port or other wine and a little lemon juice. Serve when cold.

Dried fruits
To cook dried fruits thoroughly they should after careful washing be soaked overnight. Next morning put them over the fire in the water in which they have been soaked; bring to a boil; then simmer slowly until the fruit is thoroughly cooked but not broken. Sweeten to taste. Very much less sugar will be needed than for fresh fruit.

Stewed prunes
Cleanse thoroughly, soak in water ten or twelve hours, adding a little granulated sugar when putting to soak, for although the fruit is sweet enough, yet experience has shown that the added sugar changes by chemical process into fruit sugar and brings out better the flavor of the fruit. After soaking, the fruit will assume its full size, and is ready to be simmered on the back of the stove. Do not boil prunes, that is what spoils them. Simmer, simmer only. Keep lid on. Shake gently, do not stir, and never let boil. When tender they are ready for table. Serve cold, and a little cream will make them more delicious. A little claret or sauterne poured over the prunes just as cooking is finished adds a flavor relished by many. Added just before simmering, a little sliced lemon or orange gives a rich color and flavor to the syrup.

Baked prunes
Cook prunes in an earthenware bean pot in the oven. Wash and soak the prunes and put them in the pot with a very little water; let them cook slowly for a long time. They will be found delicious, thick and rich, without any of the objectionable sweetness. Lemon, juice and peel, may be added if desired.

Prunes without sugar
Wash prunes thoroughly, pour boiling water over same and let them stand for ten minutes. Then drain and pour boiling water over them again; put in sealed jar; see that prunes are all covered with water. Ready for use after forty-eight hours. Will keep for a week at a time and the longer they stand the thicker the syrup gets.

Steamed prunes
Steam until the fruit is swollen to its original size and is tender. Sprinkle with powdered sugar and squeeze lemon juice over them.

Prune soufflé
Remove the pits from a large cup of stewed prunes and chop fine. Add the whites of three eggs and a half cup of sugar beaten to a stiff froth. Mix well, turn into a buttered dish and bake thirty minutes in a moderate oven. Serve with whipped cream. If it is desired to cook this in individual cups, butter the cups, fill only two-thirds full, to allow for puffing up of the eggs, and set the cup a in a pan of water to bake. Some like a dash of cinnamon in this.

Sweet entrée of ripe peaches
Take large, solid peaches, pour boiling water over them so that the skin may be removed smoothly. Have ready thick syrup made of sugar and water. When boiling hot add peaches and boil about five minutes; remove and place in ice chest. When ready to serve have a sweet cracker on dish, place peach on same and pour over this a raspberry jelly slightly thinned and cover all with salted almonds or walnuts. Other fruits may be treated in like manner.