It seems sort of shocking to think that this part of the country has a lot in common with Provence, in the south of France. But actually, if you’re looking at what to do with all the great stuff from the farmers markets, check the cookbooks that focus on Provencal cooking to find your answers. All the tomatoes, eggplant, Swiss chard, squashes and so on can be brought to glorious ends in that tradition. So this is the time of year that I find myself leafing through my several Provencal cookbooks. And when I offered to bring dessert to a Fourth of July dinner and I needed something with no sugar, I found my answer in The Provence Cookbook by Patricia Wells.
These are fresh peaches, gently poached in spiced red wine. I used Splenda, which dissolved easily, instead of sugar, and adjusted the recipe slightly to account for what I had on hand (and my own taste; she adds one star anise, which I preferred to omit). Wells calls for four white peaches, but I used eight cling peaches, whose pits I managed to remove without too much trouble. For wine I used two partly consumed bottles of Cabernet Sauvignon from the previous evening’s tasting.
I cannot say this improves on the taste of fresh peaches. That’s almost impossible, of course, but it’s not feasible to offer them up on a buffet without some sort of adjustment to avoid the flesh browning. The aroma from this is wonderful, sort of a vanilla-spice. She says it can be served warm as well as cold; I refrigerated it overnight
PEACHES IN RED WINE
8 peaches
Grated zest of 1 orange
2 whole cloves
1 cinnamon stick
10 black peppercorns
1 whole vanilla bean
1/ 2 cup sugar (or equivalent of sweetener of your choice)
1 750-ml. bottle red wine
Prepare a large bowl of ice water and set aside. Put enough water to cover peaches (I did them four at a time) in a saucepan and bring it to a boil. While the water is heating, cut a shallow X in the bottom of each peach. In a deep pot, put the remaining ingredients and begin heating them over low heat.
When the water boils, add the peaches, doing them in batches if necessary, and heat them for about 2 minutes. Lift them out and plunge them into the ice water. When they’re cool enough to handle, slide the skin off each peach and cut it into halves or quarters. Discard the peach pits.
Place the peaches in the wine, and allow them to cook over low heat until they’re soft. The time will vary with the ripeness of the peaches; use a sharp knife or a toothpick to check.
Remove the peaches and set aside. Raise the heat over the wine and cook it down until it’s reduced by half. (Wells says this will take 10 minutes, but at my house, things never reduce as quickly as the cookbooks say, no matter what I do.) Use a fine mesh sieve and strain the wine over the peaches. Serve immediately or chill to taste.
Serves 8 or so.
Comments
One response
wow, sounds delicious! Now I know what to do with all my leftovers from wine tastings — just soak some fruit in them.
If you want to check out my v-blog of wine reviews, Cabernet or not, I’m on http://www.pardonthatvine.com.
Nice recipe, and great post!