![]() Mix the grated zest and a teaspoon of sugar into the creme fraiche and refrigerate until ready to serve. Strain the peaches through a sieve set over a small saucepan, and discard the rosemary and lime peel: you should end up with about 60ml peach syrup. Stir and set aside to macerate for at least 40 minutes, and up to a couple of hours. Mix the lime juice with 60g sugar in a large bowl, add the peaches, strips of lime skin and rosemary sprigs. Serves four generously.Ģ limes – 1 peeled in 7 long strips, the other grated, to get 1 tsp, then both juiced, to get 1½ tbsp 80g caster sugar 2 large firm peaches, stoned and cut into 0.5cm-thick slices (300g net weight) 2 large sprigs rosemary, plus ½ tbsp picked leaves 150g creme fraiche Plain flour, for dusting 200g all-butter puff pastry 10g unsalted butter, cut into 1cm pieces 1 egg, beaten ¼ tsp cornflour It’s a combination I discovered only recently, and now I can’t get enough of it. Rosemary, which I’ve used both in this dish and in the shrub, is a fantastic match for peach. 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. This makes good use of firm, not-so-ripe peaches. 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. Hard peaches may lack some natural sweetness, true, but you can draw that out depending on how you cook them. It’s also why I reserve firmer fruit for cakes and tarts overripe ones go into jams, compotes or today’s shrub. That’s why I regard a tray of ripe peaches as something of a gift: eating them right there and then, and hitting that sweet spot, really is worthy of a celebration. (The cold temperature at which they are stored when shipped and stocked, to prolong shelf life, also means the flesh often turns very mealy.) ![]() They’ll continue to soften once picked, sure, and also develop an aroma, but their sweetness won’t develop any more post-picking. Along with other “non-climacteric” fruit such as pineapple, citrus, most berries and melons, they don’t store starch, so they don’t go through the same process of converting it into sugar. Peaches, on the other hand, are not such a peachy logistical dream. The ripe fruit will emit ethylene, which helps ripen the unripe fruit.) (On a smaller scale, you can achieve a similar effect at home by putting an unripe fruit in a paper bag with a ripe one. This makes such fruit a logistical dream for those who grow and sell them: they can be picked unripe and shipped hard (so they’re not prone to bruising), and ripened once the travel is done. ![]() Once picked, a simple hydrocarbon gas called ethylene triggers the process that converts that starch back to sweetness. Bananas and avocados (along with pears and tomatoes) are climacteric and often store their sugar in the form of starch. The difference between peaches and avocados is all to do with the way the fruits ripen. It’s not that those fruit are any less special it’s just that they don’t have quite the same wow factor, that tempting, “eat me now” look of a perfectly ripe peach. I would never have dreamed of taking a tray of, say, avocados or a bunch of bananas. I went to a party earlier this summer and took a tray of ripe peaches instead of a bottle of wine. ![]()
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