Reserve Preserves
It all started so innocently, with a bottle of bacon-infused vodka.
[If this isn't one of the greatest of all opening lines, then I'm not a former English major!]
That led to the bacon-infused bourbon. Jamie Boudreau’s cocktail recipe for his bacon bourbon called for cherry cordial, and that got me thinking about making my own cordials or fruit syrups. It’s a well-known preserving technique to cook fruits for a brief time in a simple syrup. While water is extracted from the fruit, sugar is absorbed and incorporated, firming up the fruit and keeping it from turning into mush. The concentration of sugar in the syrup lowers the water activity level and prevents just about anything from growing, with the exception of molds. Add enough alcohol to fortify the syrup (so it’s about 20%), and it will keep indefinitely, without fermenting or turning into vinegar. You can stick to pretty neutral flavors, like white sugar for the sweetener and brandy for the alcohol, or you can compose each jar like a cocktail, choosing honey to complement apricots and kirschwasser to go with preserved cherries.
In the summer, I plan to make some syrups from the fresh fruit that will be available–strawberries, raspberries, blueberries. But once inspiration strikes, it’s hard for me to hold my horses. Fortunately there’s plenty to do this time of year, as many other fruits, particularly stone fruits, work better to make a flavored syrup after they’ve been dried. So here’s what I’ve put up in the last couple days . . .
For each quart jar, you want a ratio of about half dried fruit to half liquid. For the liquid, you want a ratio of about half syrup to half alcohol. (This way, if you’re alcohol is a conventional distilled spirit, such as bourbon, brandy, or rum, which is typically 40% alcohol, you end up with 20% alcohol in the final mix.) For the syrup, dissolve the sugar or syrup in the water–heating it if you need to.
Dried Apricots in Sauternes
dried apricots to fill a quart jar
one 375ml bottle of Sauternes
¼ cup honey
¼ cup pure alcohol, such as Gem Clear
2 tablespoons Amaretto
Prunes in Bourbon
dried prunes to fill ¾ of a quart jar
1 cup water
¼ cup sorghum
1 cup bourbon
1 vanilla bean
Jacked Apples
dried apples to fill a quart jar
1 cup water
½ cup white sugar
1 cup applejack (apple brandy) or calvados
1 small piece cinnamon stick
Light Rum Raisins
golden raisins to fill 2/3 of a quart jar
½ cup currants
1 cup water
¼ cup Lyle’s Golden syrup
1 cup golden Añejo rum
Dark Rum Raisins
raisins to fill 2/3 of a quart jar
1 cup water
¼ cup sorghum
1 cup dark rum
Nothing could be simpler: after you mix each jar, you just let it sit for a few months, letting the fruit absorb flavors from the syrup and the alcohol, the liquid absorb sugars from the fruit until it becomes a thick syrup. Then just keep the jars in the refrigerator, topping them up with fruit, syrup, or alcohol, as you use them up.
Then what are these preserves good for? Everything!
Simpler syrups and preserved berries can be used to mix up your own cocktails. I’m going to preserve some of our red currants in syrup and cassis this summer so that I can mix up the ultimate kir. Fruits and syrups can be used in all kinds of desserts. The simplest is just to spoon a little of each over some ice cream. Think coffee ice cream and dark rum raisins. Today, were throwing some of the rum raisins into a bread pudding. Jacked apples would work well too. Preserved cherries could go into a Black Forest chocolate cake. Fruit syrups could be used to flavor and color frostings.
I like to use the syrup and fruit with meats as well. With jars of fruit syrups, you’ve got the makings for any number of sauces or glazes. As I said to Wheels, I often think pork roasts can be a little dry and bland, so I like stuffing them with fruits like these, which baste the meat from the inside while the syrup bastes it on the outside. Think of a pork loin stuffed with the apricots soaked in Sauternes. Incroyable! I can’t wait to use the syrups from the bourbon-soaked prunes and from the jacked apples as a glaze the next time I smoke some bacon. I’m working on a recipe that will use some of the jacked apples and/or the prunes in a pork sausage to offer later this month.
The only limit to using these fruits and syrups is your imagination!
February 22nd, 2009 at 9:19 am
[...] month’s sausage is inspired by the fruits preserved in alcohol that I’ve been playing with recently. I’ve taken some of the dried [...]
February 22nd, 2009 at 9:37 am
[...] the meat around it. For stuffing, I’m using the prunes soaked in bourbon that I described in an earlier recipe. To stuff the tenderloin, you need a long, thin-bladed knife like a fillet knife. Fortunately, my [...]
February 4th, 2010 at 7:52 am
[...] or molasses, panela, demerara, turbinado, and muscovado sugars. If you recall, I’ve even made my own fruit syrups, by soaking prunes in bourbon and armagnac, apricots in Sauternes, and dried apples in [...]
March 3rd, 2010 at 7:52 am
[...] my hand at making a new world or Caribbean version, substituting raisins soaked in dark rum (from my library of schnockered fruits) for the fruit, and spicing it up with a little more mace and [...]