Earl Grey Infused Peaches

 

Peach season is nearing the end as farm stands turn over to apples and pears. This is how I ended up with a few not-so-perfect peaches. A little overripe, a little splotchy maybe, but still a good fruit. This is a quick trick to gussy up lackluster stone fruits. Such as the ones which don't quite ever ripen and those which ripened to fast...it's hard to be a fruit. Last year I did loads of jam making, the favorite of everyone being Peach Earl Grey Jam, this is a quick rif on that and it only takes 10 minutes at most, and far less sugar.

Brew Earl Grey Tea, you need 1/2 a cup. Dice a few peaches. Get a spoon of sugar

Put tea, peaches and a spoonfull of sugar together in a saucepan. Turn up the heat, make it boil.

Turn to a simmer for about 5 minutes. The liquid reduces a syrup and peaches are tender and infused.

Serve in all types of luscious ways; in yogurt with chia seeds like I did for breakfast. 

On vanilla ice cream for desert. 

As an accompaniment to plain sponge cake. 

On waffles. 

In oatmeal. 

Mixed into rice pudding even!

Ill note that I prefer to leave the skins on, when I have organic peaches which haven't been sprayed.  This is different, I know a lot of cooks like to skin their peaches, but I believe the skin has wonderful flavor and I find the textures appealing.  Plus it is probably filled with vitamins, that's what I was told as a child. (If they are not organic and you want to remove any pesticides the peaches can be skinned by a quick poaching.)

Earl Grey Infused Peaches

 

2-3 peaches

1 tablespoon honey or raw sugar

1/2 cup Brewed Earl grey tea

Brew the tea, steeping for 4 minutes. Wash and chop the peaches. Place into a small saucepan. Add the honey and tea. Turn on high, bringing the liquid to a boil. Stir occasionally, keeping the liquid at a low boil. In 5 to 10 minutes the when the tea has cooked off, the remaining liquid will have become syrupy and the sugary peaches will begin to sizzle, turn off the heat.   

Keeps for 2 weeks in the fridge. 

Spruce Tips, Part 2: Evergreen Cocktail Syrup

Spruce tips to be cooked with sugar

Besides being good in salads, spruce tip syrup is a grand addition to your cocktail bar. Steeped for a day to allow the puzzling flavors and smells of pine tree to infuse the sugar syrup. I like to use it in cocktails, but added to seltzer water is nice, or a sorbet. Many options. Spruce tip syrup can be used much like elderflower liqueur, it is very good with gin or vodka. Pairs well with lemon and lime.

And it is easy as pie to make. Increase the sugar and water content to the amount of spruce tips you have collected. It is a dead simple 1:1:1 ratio.

Spruce tip simple syrup

Spruce Tip Syrup

1 cup spruce tips
1 cup sugar
1 cup water

Put all the ingredients into an appropriately sized pot. Bring it to a simmer over medium heat. Simmer until the sugar has dissolved and the liquid around the tips is as clear as water. Turn off the heat.

Set the pot aside, covered, to steep for 8 hours. A little more or a little less wont kill it, I find 8 hours is a suitable amount of time for the flavors to be extracted.

Bottled Spruce Tip Cocktail Syrup

Strain the syrup with a fine mesh strainer. Place a funnel in the bottle to be filled, the strainer held over that, and carefully pour the syrup through it. Use the back of a spoon to press extra syrup from the collected evergreen tips.

Your golden syrup will last months and months unless it is drank first.

Spruce Tip Part 1: Vinegar

Spruce Tips

Spruce tips are an unusual food, available only for a week or two in the Spring and to those to are willing to forage for some adventurous flavor. Quite simply spruce tips are the brand new green growth of evergreen trees. At the end of each branch a little bud of brown appears, it grows until the brown paper pops off and blows away. Tender neon green nubs are revealed. The tips.

Step 1: Make sure the tree in question is in a healthy environment, no pesticides, not too close to a road, you are going to eat them, basic rules apply.

Step 2: Sample your tree, pinch off one tender tip and eat it, tasting if it is a good tree. All trees have a unique taste. Some are horrible and resinous you will want to spit them out. The good ones taste like lemon and christmas trees and something mysterious and spicy. You will know a good tree when you find it.

Step 3: Collect the evergreen tips in a bag. Know that you are essentially pruning the tree where you pinch off tips. So like any other harvesting from nature, pick a little here and a little there, not decimating one spot over another, and leaving some for the tree.

Spruce TIps

Bring the found tips home and sort through them, the little pile to the right in this picture is all the removed bits, a few sticks, older pine needles, brown paper casings and evergreen flowers which got picked along with the tips.

Spruce tips are primarily an ingredient for flavor. I hear some people make tea or beer with them. I make two simple things, an infused vinegar and a simple syrup (recipe to follow in the next post.) The vinegar is infused for four weeks and makes amazing salad dressings, imparting a tantalizing pine note to normal salad greens. Not specifically tasting like a pine trees, it tastes like the smell of a christmas tree when you think "that smells really good."



Spruce Tip Vinegar
1 cup spruce tips

Spruce Tip Vinegar Day 1

2 cups white vinegar (or apple cider)
1 jar

Sort any debris from the pile of spruce tips. I cant see any reason to wash them. Place them in the jar and pour the vinegar over. Close it tight.
Shake the jar once a day for four weeks.
Once infused, pour the vinegar through a strainer into your chosen vinegar bottle. The tips will be strained out, they are very broken down at this point, discard them.


To make a salad dressing, mix 1 part spruce tip vinegar to 3 parts extra virgin olive oil, and a pinch of salt and pepper. Shake up well and enjoy.