One of the pleasures of summer is the abundance of fruit available, particularly stone fruit. Unfortunately, not to sound like a crotchety old lady, stone fruit these days rarely taste like the delicious fruit, dripping with juice, of my childhood. I have found that poaching the disappointing remains of the several pounds of fruit that I have optimistically purchased and found lacking at the first bite is the way to go.
As illustrated above, I leave the skins on halved apricots as they are very thin, but I blanch both nectarines and peaches in boiling water for a minute or so, and then slip off the skins before halving and then quartering the fruit prior to poaching.
Your imagination is the only limit when making this recipe. You can make a plain poaching syrup, but the addition of herbs to the syrup adds lovely back notes to the already slightly floral fruit. Apricots are lovely with basil, peaches marry well with lemon verbena, nectarines are delightful with a bit of lavender. A squeeze of lemon or lime, a bit of chopped crystallized ginger, a few drops of vanilla, and you will have something that is close to the fruit of your childhood, with a few embellishments. You can also go the slightly boozy route - poach apricots in plain syrup, squeeze in some lemon and add a splash of Lillet, or poach peaches in a mint simple syrup and then add a chug of Bourbon for a fruity take on a julep.
I eat these poached fruit (not the boozy ones) for breakfast, chilled and topped with plain Greek yogurt and a sprinkling of granola. They are delicious as dessert, warm, topped with a scoop of ice cream or some buttermilk pudding. The fruit, once pureed, makes for a great addition to cocktails or mocktails or lemonades. Any leftover syrup is a lovely flavoring for a tall glass of soda water.
Last but not least, simple syrup is usually made by boiling equal amounts of sugar and water together. I find this too sweet when using to poach already sweet fruit, so I have reduced the sugar by 2/3 and then spent a longer time reducing it in order to achieve the same viscosity as regular simple syrup.
This recipe is for 1 pound of stoned fruit, apricots halved and peaches or nectarines, peeled and each half quartered.
1 lb fruit
Handful of herb of your choice, or a few sprigs of lavender
1/3 cup of sugar
1 cup water
Juice of 1/2 lemon or lime, a few drops of vanilla, or a glug of your favorite booze
Measure the sugar, water and herb of choice into a saucepan and bring to a rolling boil. Reduce the heat and allow to cook until reduced by half and thickened. This should take about 10 to 15 minutes. Taste the syrup from time to time and remove the herbs when it has infused the syrup to your liking.
While the syrup is reducing, stone and prepare the fruit. Do this above a bowl so you can catch any juices.
Place the fruit in one layer in a large saucepan. Pour over the syrup. Cook the apricots for 3 minutes, peaches and nectarines for 5 minutes until they are fork tender but hold their shape. Remove from the heat, cover and let the fruit finsih cooking in the cooling syrup.
Once cool, stir in your lemon or lime juice, vanilla or alcohol of choice.
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