Peach Melba

Poached peaches cooled in their own syrup with a raspberry sauce that is never cooked.

Vegetarian, but not vegan — contains dairy (cream).

Ingredients

For the peaches

• 4 ripe but firm peaches
• 400 ml water
• 200 g caster sugar
• 1 vanilla pod, split
• 1 strip lemon peel

For the sauce

• 300 g raspberries
• 50 g icing sugar
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice

To serve

• good vanilla ice cream
• a few flaked almonds, toasted

Method

1. THE RASPBERRY SAUCE IS NOT COOKED. Raw fruit crushed with icing sugar and sieved, and that is all. Cooked, it turns jammy and dull and tastes of boiled sugar; raw, it stays sharp and bright and is the thing that stops the dish being three sweet elements in a bowl. Icing sugar rather than caster, because it dissolves cold.
2. THE PEACHES ARE COOLED IN THEIR POACHING SYRUP, not lifted out. They carry on taking up vanilla and sugar as they cool, and the syrup keeps them from browning. Drained hot, they are bland at the centre and go leathery at the edges.
3. THEY ARE PEELED AFTER POACHING, NOT BEFORE. Thirty seconds at the end of the poach and the skins slip off between finger and thumb. Peeled raw, they lose flesh to the peeler and bruise in the pan.
4. AND IT IS ASSEMBLED AT THE TABLE. Sauce under, peach on, ice cream beside rather than under -- ice cream at the bottom melts into the sauce and the whole bowl goes pink and watery before anyone has started.
5. Water, sugar, vanilla pod and lemon peel brought to a simmer and stirred until the sugar dissolves.
6. Peaches lowered in whole, a lid or a disc of paper laid on to keep them under, and poached at a BARE simmer 10 to 15 minutes until a skewer slides in with slight resistance.
7. The pan taken off the heat and the peaches LEFT IN THE SYRUP to cool completely. Several hours, or overnight in the fridge.
8. Lifted out, the skins slipped off, and each halved and stoned.
9. Raspberries crushed with the icing sugar and lemon juice with the back of a spoon -- not blended, which aerates it pale.
10. Pushed through a fine sieve, and the pips discarded. Tasted: it should be sharp.
11. A little of the poaching syrup stirred in if the sauce is too thick to pour.
12. To serve: a pool of sauce in each shallow bowl, two peach halves set on it hollow side down, a scoop of ice cream beside them.
13. The almonds scattered over and taken to the table at once.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under France · All recipes