June 26, 2008

French Summer Food- in small batches


It's too hot to cook.

Even in the outside tiki hut of a kitchen we sweat...
and not just onions and shallots.
With Summer heat comes summer fruit and in a frenzy of small batch conserving Jenny, Matt and I made:

Carmelized Confit Cherry (perfect over ice cream)
Pink Peach Vinegar*
Vinegar of Pruneaux d'Agen* (for deglazing the pan when making sauteed foie gras)
Compote de Rhubarbe
Sirop de Mirabelle (for a Kir Verger- perrier and syrup)

and that was not even trying...


*** to details on making fruit vinegars see the recipe in my book. Basically I poach VERY RIPE fruit (approx 1-2 pounds) in 2-3 cups of vinegar- white for the peach, red wine for the prunes. Cook until the fruit has released itself into the liquid and the liquid has reduced by half. Strain, filter and decant.

5 comments:

The Blushing Hostess said...

Kate! The pink peach vinegar sounds wonderful. It is peach season here, can you give me an idea how to do this? Thanks!

Anonymous said...

Kate, I'm curious, for your pink peach vinegar, are you making flavored vinegar where you flavor bulk vinegar with syrup or are you first making peach wine and turning that into vinegar with an airborne bacteria?

Kate Hill said...

Hope the amendment to the post helps explain; This works with most any very ripe fruit- cherries, raspberries, apricots, fig, etc...

Anonymous said...

All sounds delish!!! What about the other recipes ?:(

Betty Carlson said...

This all looks lovely. I didn't do much summer cooking in France -- too busy with all of the end of the year activities.

I hope to catch up with a lot of things this summer in the USA!

Take care,

Betty