Sunday, September 03, 2006

Gaspeacho

I think this cool peach soup is commonly known as meli-melo, but I have been calling it gaspeacho. I made this last week just before I left for Yiddish camp, from which we just returned. Traditionally you would be making meli-melo with only peaches, but I made this version with about half peaches and half apricots, because that’s what was around.

I always cook the stones along with the fruit and wine, but does anyone know if this really makes a difference, or is it purely a mystical gesture, like putting a light bulb in one’s guacamole?

Meli-Melo (Gaspeacho)

1 bottle (750 ml) dry white wine, or as much as is left in the bottle, plus more water

1 cup water

½ cup sugar (you may reduce the sugar)

1-inch piece of cinnamon stick, optional

1 clove, optional (possibly more—I have some very powerful cloves)

½ of one bourbon vanilla bean, optional, but really nice

4 ripe but firm peaches

12 or so ripe but firm apricots

Pour the wine and water into a large saucepan. Split the vanilla bean and scrape the seeds into the wine. Add the vanilla pod, sugar, cinnamon, and cloves and bring to a simmer. Cook over low heat for ten minutes. The cinnamon stick will dance around Blanch the peaches and apricots in hot water and slip off their skins. Slice the fruit over the saucepan so you catch every drop of perfumed juice. Drop the slices into the saucepan, along with the stones. Continue to simmer for another ten minutes. Chill before serving.

If you do not have whole spices, do not use ground spices. This will be just lovely unspiced, but yucky and murky with powder.

More seasonal flavors at Weekend Herb Blogging

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5 Comments:

Blogger Kalyn Denny said...

You are too funny. Gaspeacho is the perfect name for this recipe. Your peach photo is wonderful too! It does sound good, although for some reason I'm not an apricot fan so I think I'd go with all peaches. (Maybe it's all those years of having a very tall apricot tree and all those apricots falling on the lawn and turning rotten. Then I'd have to pick them up, yuck!)

10:15 AM  
Blogger mzn said...

Yes, this looks really good.

Now is there some connection between your lightbulb in the guacamole and the link you left on my blog about eating glass?

5:06 PM  
Blogger the chocolate doctor מרת שאקאלאד said...

kalyn,
Thanks. This is great with all peaches, yellow or white. I used to think I didn't care for apricots either--the ones we got locally were usually cottony and dull, but since Red Cheek orchards has been selling their tart, juicy little apricots in Union Square I am crazy about them.

mzn,
I should probably explain the lightbulb comment. It is a reference to the experiment Hal Mcgee describes in On Food and Cooking in which he tests the assertion that an avocado pit keeps guacamole from oxidizing by making one batch with a pit and another with a lightbulb.

I do not recommend eating the lightbulb.

11:48 AM  
Blogger Amy W. said...

No relation to food, but I figured you'd like to know that the Griddlers website now incudes instructions in Yiddish.

1:27 PM  
Blogger Amy W. said...

I don't like wine. Would this work if I used ginger ale instead?

3:01 AM  

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