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Stewed Peaches
Peel and cut into quarters ten medium-sized ripe peaches, removing the stones, put them into a saucepan with one pint of cold water and add eight ounces of granulated sugar. Place the pan on the stove, and when boiling, skim well; cook for five minutes, meanwhile stirring slowly from the bottom to avoid mashing the fruit, remove from the fire and immediately add a gill of kirsch, mixing well together for about half a minute, pour the preparation into a bowl, let it get cool, turn it out onto a dish, and serve. Stewed Peaches, Conde Wipe the peaches, put them in a preserving-pan with some clarified sugar and stew them. Prepare a croustade of rice, bake it, and when done turn it out onto a hot dish; ornament it with dried cherries and strips of angelica and put the stewed peaches around it; make a sauce with apricot marmalade and madeira in equal parts and pour it over.
Two recipes run together here: a plain compote of peaches in kirsch syrup, and a dressed-up version built on a moulded rice case. The first is straightforward; the second assumes a pastry kitchen's stock of prepared components.
- A gillHalf a cup, or 4 fl oz. That is a generous amount of kirsch for ten peaches, and it is added off the heat so almost none of the alcohol cooks off. Half that quantity still reads clearly.
- Eight ounces of sugarA weight, not a volume: about 1 1/8 cups granulated. With a pint of water that gives a light syrup, on the order of a third sugar by weight.
- PeelingRipe freestone peaches peel most easily after 30 to 45 seconds in boiling water and a plunge into ice water. Peeling with a knife wastes flesh and bruises the fruit, which then breaks up in the syrup.
- Five minutes is for ripe fruitGenuinely ripe peaches may be done in three; firm supermarket fruit can need eight to ten. Test with a knife tip rather than the clock, and stop while the quarters still hold their shape.
- Stirring from the bottomThe instruction matters. Lift the fruit gently with a spoon or shake the pan rather than stirring in circles; peach quarters shear apart easily once heated through.
- Clarified sugarIn the second recipe this means a sugar syrup boiled and skimmed clear, not a modern product. A simple syrup of equal weights sugar and water does the same work.
- Croustade of riceA stiff sweetened rice pudding, pressed into a mould, chilled until it holds, then baked to firm the outside so it can be turned out and filled. Oscar assumes the reader knows the method; it is closer to a rice torte than to pastry.
- AngelicaCandied stems of Angelica archangelica, sold in bright green strips as a garnish. It is now hard to find outside specialist confectioners; candied citron or thin strips of candied lemon peel give the same purpose without the colour.
- YieldTen peaches serve six to eight as a compote. Serve cold, with the syrup, in glass if possible.
Compotes of this kind were standard hotel dessert work at the turn of the twentieth century, when a kitchen the size of the Waldorf's stewed fruit in quantity every day and finished it to order. The kirsch is the point of the first recipe: a clear cherry eau-de-vie associated with the Black Forest, Alsace and Switzerland, added at the last moment so its aroma survives, and long paired with stone fruit.