A problem of peaches

1 day ago

"Green fruit doesn’t mean bad fruit." Emma Laperruque/Food 52

I don't think I'm going to have much to say today because time is running out and this is my third attempt at writing about something. I have two problems looming on the food front and this post is going to be about the first one shown above. Unripe peaches - a whole lot of them.

Today I decided to strip my peach tree of its fruit as it was looking near collapse under it's tent of netting. I wasn't quite sure whether it was the netting bending it down or the fruit which hung from its branches, so decided that the time had come. Some of the fruit was beginning to look peachy - the blush on the skin - but not many and even those felt rock hard. Nevertheless the time had come, particularly because of the threat of lots of gifted plums next week from my friends' tree. Better to do something with the peaches now rather than be battling with two gluts at once. Besides it's relatively cool for the next few days.

But what to do? Will I be able to make jam, which of course would be my preferred option?

So I have started looking and already come across this from Food 52

"Start with rock-hard fruit. Peel and slice, like for pie. Sprinkle with sugar and salt and let hang out. To finish: olive oil, black pepper, and fresh mint. Totally Genius." Bill Smith (chef)

Emma Perruque - the writer of the article provides an actual recipe at the end of the article in which she swaps out the mint for spring onions, but also gives other suggestions too. So I might consider doing that to a small batch of the peaches in a moment. She suggests using them in salads, so they might come in handy for my problem number 2 - feeding my entire family - 11 of us - on Sunday which is going to be very hot - without doing much with actual heat. I'm saving that problem for tomorrow's post I think. I'm just mentioning it here.

As I continued with my 'research' I eventually, as I always do, came to Ottolenghi who also recommended macerating for his recipe for Peach, lime and rosemary galette, saying:

"By macerating them in sugar and lime juice, you not only soften the fruit, but you also make a beautiful syrup to pour over the dish at the end."

But not much use for a ton of peaches.

As you read on you will notice a few more bits of macerating, so I am inserting here a recommendation I found late in the piece for a combination of macerating and grilling on the Ask Meta Filter forum:

"I'd halve and pit and put them in a ziplock bag with maple syrup, rum, olive oil and cinnamon. Let sit for while. Then grill until soft. Then serve with vanilla ice cream and fresh blackberries." slateyness

Solution number 2 for my peaches. Poach them. This suggestion is from Emma Christensen of The Kitchn. Again more or less anything goes here with respect to the poaching liquid, the flavourings and how you treat the fruit before poaching. But she does refer you to a recipe on the Tasting Table website for these Poached peaches in white wine. Which could be nice and I could make them for dessert one day, but that's only going to take care of one or two peaches. So not an overall solution

Solution number 3 - Bake them. I suspect this might be less successful as only a couple of bloggers suggested it, with one - who used ripe fruit - saying:

"Unripe peaches will be less juicy, a bit bland, and not as sweet"

And there's the same problem as with the poached peaches. Only good for a couple of peaches.

That said I could give it a go. The advantage over the poached is that you can up the taste by stuffing the space left by the stone with all manner of things.

But no, not a solution really.

Solution number 4 - pickled. Now this seems like a good way to go as long as I actually use them when I've made them. The writer of this particular recipe on Food.com - xtine - was a recommendation from a reddit writer. He or she was reassuring when they said:

"Make sure to use small, slightly under-ripe peaches - you want them to be hard, the opposite of what you would want in a peach you would eat out of hand. Ripe peaches will turn too mushy after you process the pickles."

The reddit recommender said:

"They are slightly sweet, slightly spicy and wonderful as a snack and beyond wonderful when smoked with a pork roast and mixed into the pulled pork step. Also splash on some leftover brine when reheating."

Tom Hunt of The Guardian offered a recipe for Quick pickled peaches, but really I think this is for riper peaches. It's also aimed at small quantities, which is definitely not my problem.

I had almost given up and was looking for jam when I found this on an Ask Meta Filter forum specifically for unrripe peaches.

"Toss peeled and very thin or julienned slices in a 1/2 and 1/2 mixture of unsweetened rice vinegar and plum wine plus scant sugar (to taste). Refrigerate these pickles until transparent and slightly macerated. Peach cold pickles are delicious on pulled pork sandwiches, vanilla or green tea ice cream, buttered toast, BBQ or roast chicken, grilled fish--or make homemade sushi rolls and put peach pickles and cream cheese in the middle." rumposinc

I wonder how long they would keep in the fridge.

Number 5 - Grill. And here I'm back to Ottolenghi and this Grilled peaches and runner beans with goat's cheese. I can see that grilling them might be an idea for an addition to a salad, but doubt that I shall be making this particular version. He adds the general comment that:

"They also have the advantage of being robust enough to hold their shape: chargrill wedges and pair with slices of salty speck or pork belly, spoons of creamy cheese or a hard herb such as rosemary."

And elsewhere he makes a salsa to accompany a chicken schnitzel too. So grilled is obviously a good option for the odd one or two.

I guess the same principle would also apply to a traybake. So maybe I should keep a few aside, hoping that they ripen a bit along the way, although Ottolenghi tells me that:

"They’ll continue to soften once picked, sure, and also develop an aroma, but their sweetness won’t develop any more post-picking."

I read somewhere that underripe peaches are no good for cakes - but Nigel has a go and gets around the problem by grilling the peaches first for his Peach and honey cake. Mind you in his ingredients list he does say ripe peaches, but Tim Dowling who led me to this recipe did say it was good for unripe peaches. I suspect that the peaches outght to be almost ripe - not like my rock-hard ones from the garden. I guess you could experiment by grilling them for a salad or something similar.

Nigel also says of grilling and/or roasting:

"Given time, they will respond to the warmth of the oven or grill. Sliced in half, stoned, brushed with melted butter or oil and seasoned with black pepper, they can be softened on the griddle or under the grill, basted every few minutes until they relent."

And then he adds them to this Salad of roast chicken and nectarines - yes nectarines, but same thing really, so it will work with peaches too. Nigel says so anyway.

Of course you don't really want them to hold their shape when making jam or chutney. But yes, chutney is one answer for a glut of "Basically, any type of peach that you’d rather not be munching on." as my chosen chutney representative The Flavor Bender says. Her recipe for Peach relish (chutney) is relatively plain, but as she says, you can certainly add a whole lot of other things.

Woolworths has another recipe for Green peach relish, which encourages you to play around with extras, although they already include a whole range of somewhat weird things - Angostoura bitters, dried peppercorn leaves ... I only add it because it's Woolworths. But Nigel has one too. As do many others - or just play around - sweetener, acid - a vinegar, spices, maybe some other fruit ... All cooked together in a pot until mushy and then put in a sterilised jar, stored in your pantry and given as potentially unwanted gifts, forgotten or actually retrieved, and tasted resulting in a wonder why you don't eat more chutney.

Jam? It sounds like unripe peaches are not a good idea for jam - not sweet enough they say. Although on the plus side they have more pectin. But then Nigel seemed to think if you cooked them long enough and slow enough with enough sugar they become more than susceptible. Maybe you should macerate them first. I think I'll have a go though because jam would definitely get eaten. Maybe combine with some other fruit - some frozen raspberries? I have far too many for just pickles and chutneys, though I am going to have a go at that. Will test the pickles out at my Sunday problem dinner. More on that tomorrow.

Drinks? I gather you need ripe peaches for infusing in vodka or brandy. but maybe a shrub would work, because that's sort of maceration. The blueberry shrub that I made by the way is just lovely with some soda water. I do recommend you try the shrub thing. And I have so many peaches, it might well be worth giving it a go with some of them.

Chutney tomorrow I think. Maybe some pickles too. Will see how energetic I'm feeling.

THE LETTER O - 3 with some short anecdotes:

The letter O as part of a name? on an envelope in our street library. It's been there for a while - since before Christmas. Is it merely a Christmas card, a message of some kind, a love letter? And why hasn't it been collected? Surely the writer would have expected the addressee to have seen it? So why haven't they taken it - even if only to throw it away - or maybe leaving it there is sending a message to the writer?

Oleander - a very feeble version of an oleander in our garden. I planted it in a pot because on a trip to Italy, when we entered Puglia on the autostrada we found it to be lined with oleanders all the way to our destination some hundreds of miles away. At least I think it was Puglia. The autostrada down the east coast anyway and literally for hundreds of miles. I planted two - one died, and I watered them too. Surely those along the autostrada are virtually left to themselves. And Order - I found these four rocks carefully lined up behind a fallen branch against a tree. No it's five - there is a small one on top of the first one. Why? This is all too heavy for a child surely?