Fruit « (y)our food choices™

Peaches are ripe and at their peak in July and August. Found just about everywhere at this time of year, the heady perfume of locally ripened warm weather stone fruit is intoxicating. Sweet, tree ripe peaches are perfect on their own. “Enriched” with sugar, spice and butter, they’re sublime.

This garam masala scented crisp is sweet, crunchy and complex. Flavors of cinnamon, clove, cardamom, nutmeg, cumin, and black pepper, pair beautifully with the floral, honeyed flavors of ripe peaches. The crispy topping has a terrific bite and adds texture to the soft stewed fruit. Add a dollop of whipped cream or a scoop of Three Twins dad’s cardamom ice cream for an easy, laid-back summer dessert.

We’re in the peak of Summer’s hot weather, and now’s the time to get those peach crisps and cobblers into the oven, or grill, before the best of them disappear from the market. That is, if you can stand the heat!

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Garam Masala Peach Crisp
Adapted from: epicurious

Ingredients

Filling:
1 1/2 cups pecans
3 pounds peaches (about 8 medium)
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
1/3 cup (packed) light brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon all purpose flour
1 teaspoon garam masala
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Topping:
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup rye flour
1/2 cup (packed) light brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon garam masala
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) chilled unsalted butter, cut into pieces

Ice Cream, for serving

Preheat oven to 350°F. Toast pecans on a rimmed baking sheet, tossing once, until slightly darkened in color, 8–10 minutes. Let cool, then coarsely chop. Set aside.

To peel the peaches. Prepare an icebath in a medium bowl. Fill a medium sauce pan half way with water and bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Score the bottom of each peach with an x. Drop a couple of peaches in the water for about 30 seconds. Scoop out with a spoon and immediately place into ice bath. When the peaches are cool enough to handle peel with a knife or fingers. Repeat with the remaining peaches. Once all the peaches are peeled, slice in half and remove the pits. Cut each peach half into thirds, and then half or thirds again. About 1/2″ pieces.

Smear bottom and sides of a 10″ round baking dish with butter. Toss pecans, brown sugar, granulated sugar, garam masala, flour, and salt in a large bowl. Add the peaches and lemon juice, toss some more until incorporated. Transfer to baking dish. Set aside.

To make the topping, whisk flours, brown sugar, garam masala, and salt in a medium bowl. Rub in butter with your fingers until no clumps form and no dry spots remain, like coarse sand.

Bake crisp until topping is golden brown and juices are thick and bubbling around the edges, 25–35 minutes. Serve with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or to increase the spice add a scoop of Three Twins dad’s cardamom ice cream.

Do Ahead:
Crisp can be made 1 day ahead. Store lightly covered at room temperature.

The first time we tasted Jackfruit we were hooked. The ripe fruit, which looks like a bunch of yellow or orange pods, taste like a mix of several fruits. It’s a clean fruit flavor, sweet but not cloyingly so. The flesh of the fruit is firm, but tender. We couldn’t resist it once we tasted it. It’s really addictive. Like crack addictive, but in a good way.

The giant, prickly jackfruit is one of the strangest things we see at our neighborhood market. Native to South Asia, the fruit can grow to nearly 100 lbs. And a single tree can produce as many as 200 jackfruit. That’s a lot of food!

Unripe jackfruit is used as a substitute for meat in curry dishes. It’s popular with vegans and other hippy types who use it to recreate a meatless version of BBQ pulled pork. Just google jackfruit pulled pork and you’ll find a plethora of videos. Most of them use the canned variety. If that’s all you can find great, but if you can find fresh, it’s worth the effort. Its subtle flavor makes it a perfect match for all kinds of spices and sauces.

Each fruit pod contains a big seed. They’re edible and they’re delicious too. Once cooked, the texture is something like a cross between potato and chestnut. Like unripe jackfruit, the seeds are used in curries. They’re great roasted or boiled. We used then in a breakfast hash and thought they were a perfect compliment to roasted potatoes, carrots, and fennel.

This is a sustainable food (at the moment) that can be produced inexpensively and as such, may be a shining spot in an otherwise challenging global food system. Buy it and you’re supporting an ecologically sound agricultural product.

Jackfruit may not be easily found outside major metro areas with large Asian communities. But if you see it, don’t let its size and exterior texture intimidate you. Take it home, cut into it, and taste what might be the “perfect” fruit flavor. Be warned, however, that the fruit releases a sticky latex sap when you cut into it. This is particularly true of green, unripe fruit. We recommend you lather on some cooking oil before handling it. Oil will clean the sticky stuff off your knives as well. The rest is easy!

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