My mate B1 brought a boozy fruit compote to dinner recently, and it was so delicious that I decided to try making one of my own. The part I liked best about it was her use of glace orange, which adds that bittersweet citrus kick to it. You can have this warm, with icecream or yoghurt, or dolloped on porridge. Since the alcohol component of the booze is actually cooked out, it's fine to have it for breakfast. You could add a little dash of brandy or liqueur back for dessert if you like.The true recipe is one of those not-recipes. Put whatever dried fruit you want in a bowl. Add some honey and some (milkless!) tea and some booze, whatever you fancy. Soak overnight. Simmer for a while to reduce liquid down.
Recipe: Boozy Fruit Compote
300g mixed dried fruit, large chunks
75g glace orange slices, chopped roughly
50ml marsala
50ml metaxa (a sweet muscatty Greek brandy)
50ml vanilla vodka
100ml strawberry champagne
300ml black chai
1 cinnamon stick
2 tablespoons honey
Assemble all in a glass bowl and soak overnight. Next day, toss in a saucepan and simmer for half an hour or until liquid is reduced to a small amount. Eat.
Notes: For fruit I used dried apricots, dried pineapple, prunes, dates, baby figs, and raisins. The strawberry champagne was a leftover, from last week's houseguest P. Chai made from a teabag from the Indian grocer.
Also while I was writing this, I kept typing compost instead of compote. DO NOT THROW ON GARDEN.
5 comments:
This sounds delicious.
It's one of those cooking myths that the alcohol is cooked out, unless you bake or simmer for hours a lot of the alcohol remains. The Wikipedia article cooking with alcohol has a good summary of the research on alcohol retention.
YUM. Your version is quite different from B1's! But I believe it wasn't glace orange it was DRIED orange. I think glace would be too sweet.
B1 can send the ur-recipe if you like?
Where on earth did you get plain dried orange? I had lots of glace orange around, so that seemed obvious. The rind's bitterness remains. Original recipe would be appreciated - did you have a formal one?
An interesting note about the alcohol - thanks for that, Pumpkin-eater. It's not strong, anyway. According to the article cited by wiki, it should be reduced to about 35% after 30 mins. It's not an issue for me, but anyone alcoholic would need to beware.
Linky: wikipedia
Serving size makes most booze in food fairly innocuous. I tend to find the selective nature of food/nutrition information that enters the food media pretty interesting, so while we all know blueberries awesome and full of antioxidants, celebrity chefs on the tv still tell everyone that the alcohol all burns off.
I wonder if you cold avoid the simmering (and preserve the booze) by soaking in boiling water and forgoing the simmer, I might have to experiment.
The dried orange was from Whisk and Pin, care of the fancy food place at the Belco market. B1 bought it shopping with you I do believe!
The recipe will come via email ok?
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