Home › The Plum › Stewed Prunes
Stewed Prunes
Wash well, then soak over night and stew (whole) in same water with juice of an orange or a little sherry, and English walnuts.
A terse late-Victorian formula that assumes hard, sun-dried prunes needing a long soak. Modern prunes are sold semi-moist and pitted, so the method compresses considerably.
- SoakingDried prunes of the period were leathery and needed eight to twelve hours in cold water. Today's moist-pack prunes need no overnight soak; an hour in warm water, or none at all, is enough.
- Cook in the soaking waterThe instruction to stew in the same water is the point of the recipe. That water holds the sugar and colour drawn out of the fruit, and discarding it leaves the syrup thin.
- QuantitiesNone are given. Roughly 1 lb prunes to 2 cups water, the juice of one orange or 2-3 tablespoons sherry, and a handful of walnut halves serves four to six.
- TimingSimmer gently, covered, 20-30 minutes for dried-hard fruit, 10-15 for modern soft prunes. Prunes boiled hard burst and go to mush; the liquid should barely tremble.
- "Whole" means unpitted"Whole" most likely means the prunes were left unpitted, stones in, which helps them hold their shape; the stones are also traditionally credited with lending a faint almond note. Pitted prunes work but collapse sooner, so shorten the cooking.
- The walnutsAdded at the start they soften and cloud the syrup with tannin. Stir them in for the last few minutes, or scatter them over at serving, if you want them crisp.
- SherryThe recipe does not say which sherry. A dry to medium amontillado or oloroso suits the dish better than a sweet cream sherry. It cooks down but does not wholly evaporate in a covered pan.
- ServingUsually served cold or barely warm, at breakfast or as a plain dessert with cream, though the recipe does not say. The syrup thickens as it cools.
Stewed prunes were a fixture of the American and British breakfast table from the mid-nineteenth century into the twentieth, valued as much for their reputed effect on the digestion as for their taste. The prune trade grew enormously after French Agen plum stock was planted in California in the 1850s, and by the time books of this kind were compiled dried prunes were among the cheapest fruits available year round. The additions here -- the little of orange, sherry and walnuts -- mark the dish as a step above the plain nursery version.