Recipes « (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.

We’re snackers. Always have been. So when a dear friend shared a batch of her sourdough crackers, we were hooked. And since our appetites for carby treats are boundless, that meant making our own at home.

The dough, on its own, produces a delicious cracker. But adding herbs and spices gives you lots of room to experiment, customizing the taste of a batch of crackers to pair with whatever works. We’ve experimented with dried herbs d’provence (a favorite), cumin and smoked paprika. We’ve also played with the fats and flours in various batches, all delicious.

Feeding a starter means discarding some of the old to make room for fresh flour. It’s a lot of starter to discard over time. Using the “throw aways” to whip up crisp, crunchy batches of crackers makes so much sense when you consider the cost of a package of specialty crackers in our local grocery stores. More than that, there is no substitute for the delicate flavors of fresh-from-the-oven anything when the alternative is something that has been packaged, shipped and displayed for weeks or months.

We’ll be sharing more of our adventures in sourdough bread making. In the meantime, we’ll just park this here in hopes it inspires you to make your own sourdough crackers. The starter couldn’t be simpler. Simply mix flour and water, cover the bowl with a clean dish towel and walk away. Time and the natural yeasts in the air will do their magic. If you want to see where our starter “recipe” comes from, check out the kitchn‘s take on the sourdough starter. We took the cracker recipe from King Arthur Flour.

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Sourdough Crackers

[Adapted from King Arthur Flour]

1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup rye flour
1/4 cup barley flour
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1 cup unfed (“discarded”) sourdough starter
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature (or other fat like olive oil or coconut oil)
2 tablespoons dried herbs of your choice, optional (we like herbs de provence)

Oil for brushing

Course salt (such as kosher or sea salt) for sprinkling on top

Instructions

Mix together the flour, salt, sourdough starter, butter, and optional herbs to make a smooth(not sticky), cohesive dough.

Divide the dough in half, and shape each half into a small rectangular slab. Cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 30 minutes, or up to a couple of hours, until the dough is firm.

Preheat the oven to 400°F.

Very lightly flour a piece of parchment, your rolling pin, and the top of the dough.

Working with one piece at a time, roll the dough to about 1/16″ thick on the parchment, or basically as thin as possible. The dough will have ragged, uneven edges; that’s OK. Just try to make it as even as possible.

Transfer the dough and parchment together onto a baking sheet. Cut the dough into 1 1/4″ squares; a rolling pizza wheel and metal ruler works well here. Pull up the scrapes and wrap in plastic wrap to refrigerate for 20 minutes, then repeat the following steps above.

Prick each square with the tines of a fork.

Lightly brush with oil and then sprinkle the salt over the top of the crackers.

Bake the crackers for about 16-20 minutes, until the squares are starting to brown around the edges.

When fully browned, remove the crackers from the oven, and transfer them to a cooling rack. Store airtight at room temperature for up to a week; freeze for longer storage.

Yield: about 50-100 crackers