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Prunes, Stewed, for Dessert
Wash the prunes, and let them soak all night in as much water as will cover them. Lift them out, and let the liquid stand a little while, then drain it from the sediment, and put it into a stewpan with a small quantity of sugar, if desired, and a little lemon-rind and cinnamon for flavouring. Stew gently for half an hour. Add as much wine as may be wished--port is the most suitable for the purpose--and stew twenty minutes longer; serve cold, in a glass dish. Probable cost of prunes, 4d. to 1s. per pound.
A simple compote that reads oddly because of one omission in the original text: the prunes are lifted out and never explicitly returned to the pan. Put them back into the strained soaking liquid before it goes on the heat.
- The missing stepAfter decanting the soaking water off its sediment, return the prunes to the stewpan along with it. Everything after that — sugar, lemon rind, cinnamon, wine — is cooked with the fruit in the pan.
- Prunes have changedPrunes of this period were generally sold hard and fully dried, which is why the overnight soak is specified. Modern supermarket prunes are usually semi-moist and partly rehydrated, so a few hours' soaking will often do, and the first stewing can probably be shortened from the half hour given here before the wine goes in.
- Why the sediment mattersDried fruit carries grit and fine dust that settles out of the soaking water. Pouring the liquid off carefully, leaving the last spoonful behind, is what keeps the syrup clear — worth doing even with washed, packaged fruit.
- Stew gently means gentlyA bare shiver of movement at the surface. A proper simmer bursts the skins and turns the dish to a murky purée rather than whole glossy fruit in syrup.
- The wine"As much as may be wished" is unhelpfully vague; something like a quarter to a third of a cup of port for a pound of prunes gives colour and body without the wine dominating. The further twenty minutes' stewing will also cook down the alcohol, so it is worth keeping.
- SugarThe original treats it as optional, and rightly so. Prunes are around 40 per cent sugar by weight and port adds more; start with a tablespoon per pound and taste at the end, since the syrup concentrates as it cooks.
- FlavouringsUse a pared strip of lemon peel with no white pith and a whole cinnamon stick, both fished out before serving. Ground cinnamon will cloud the syrup.
- Yield and servingA pound of prunes serves six as a dessert. Chill thoroughly — the syrup thickens as it cools — and serve in a glass bowl as directed, with cream or a plain custard.
Stewed prunes sat in the Victorian pantry at the junction of dessert and medicine. Dried plums were cheap, kept indefinitely, and were valued as a gentle laxative, which is why they turn up in invalid-cookery chapters as well as in dessert lists; a price note of fourpence to a shilling a pound shows a wide quality range, from coarse cooking fruit to the large soft French prunes generally traced to the Agen district, which were sold as a luxury for the dessert table. The port is what lifts this version out of the sickroom: a compote finished with wine, lemon and cinnamon and turned out cold into a glass dish was a presentable end to a family dinner in a household that could not run to hothouse fruit in winter. The technique — cook the fruit in its own soaking liquor — is older than the book and remains the standard way to handle any dried fruit compote.