When stone fruits make their appearance in local farmers markets, there is a temptation to just eat the perfect fruit over the sink. After all, we wait a whole year for them to come back to us in the form of juicy, full-color orbs. You sink your teeth into a ripe plum, apricot, or peach, and nature’s genius is on full display, so let’s find more ways of enjoying the fruit.
When I think of stone fruit, my brain immediately goes to pie, but I understand that not everyone wants to take that on. In my opinion, no summer pie is as luscious as a peach pie, but if you’re looking for less work, I offer my Peach Gallette recipe. For pies, you want peaches with a nice hit of acid, so don’t use white peaches here.
White peaches have less acid than yellow varieties, which means that the sweetness of the fruit dominates. You can taste subtle floral aromas. My favorite way to use white peaches is in a shortcake. Peaches are easy to peel. After a dip in boiling water, the skins just slip off. Cut the peeled fruit into slices and toss with a tiny bit of sugar if necessary and a little bit of lemon juice if you feel you need it. Serve on your favorite scone or pound cake with whipped cream. I think Roxana Jullapat’s Ginger Scones recipe from Friends and Family would be a perfect choice. If you want to make your own shortcake, I recommend this recipe for King Arthur’s Cream Scones.
Peaches stuffed with amaretti cookies are an easy summer dessert. Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.
The size and shape of these fruits, including the little divot in the flesh made by the pit being removed, means that they are perfect for stuffing. You can go in a savory or a sweet direction with what you plunk atop the peach. All stone fruit love fresh cheeses like burrata and goat cheese, and briny cheeses like feta. But if you want to keep it sweet, I scoop out a bit of the flesh (not too much), chop it up, and add crumbled amaretti cookies and bits of chocolate. I mound that mixture atop the peach, nectarine, or apricot, then bake them. But if you don’t want to do even that much work, this recipe of 10 Minute Broiled Peaches is so easy. Simply drizzle the halved peaches or nectarines with a mixture of rum and maple syrup. Put them under the broiler until they get a bit golden and sticky from the syrup, then remove from the broiler, and crumble the amaretti on top, and finish off again in the broiler for a couple of minutes. Serve with a dollop of yoghurt or whipped cream.
Make salsa with peaches instead of tomatoes when they are abundant in summertime. Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.
To brainstorm other ways of using summer stone fruit, think about how you use raw tomatoes. Want to make a summertime caprese of tomato, mozzarella, and basil? Every other time, use plums instead. You get the same contrast of deep color against the white of the cheese. And the aromatic summer basil (hopefully grown outside) pairs as beautifully with stone fruit as it does with tomatoes. Try a plum and mozzarella caprese with Thai basil for even more color and that more robust flavor.
Peaches and nectarines have a good balance of acid and sugar, so they lend themselves to salsas and can be paired with unexpected spices. For example, former Ottolenghi Test Kitchen head Noor Murad has a wonderfully simple recipe for spiced Ginger Peaches in her new book Lugma (“bite” in Arabic). She tosses slices of peaches or nectarines with maple syrup, lime juice, and salt. Then she sautés julienned ginger in olive oil until it becomes crisp and flavors the oil, then she adds black mustard seeds and Aleppo pepper to the ginger oil just to bloom the spices. The gingery spiced oil finished off the peaches. I think this fruit salad would be wonderful with any stone fruit, including pluots or plums.