Читать книгу The Kitchen Diaries II - Nigel Slater - Страница 35

Warm apples in a gently spiced syrup are useful as both a breakfast dish and a dessert. Sweet but refreshing, and pleasingly simple, these poached fruits are also good served thoroughly chilled. A nice change from creamy desserts. Odd as it seems, we ate this outside in the snow. The ginger-scented warmth and clarity of the juice encouraged us to eat it standing up in the garden, marvelling at the tall hedges weighed down with snow and the slowly darkening sky.

small to medium dessert apples: 3

the juice of half a lemon

unfiltered apple juice: 400ml

golden caster sugar: 2 tablespoons

star anise: 2

ginger preserved in syrup: 40g

syrup from the ginger jar: 4 tablespoons

Peel the apples, halve them and remove their cores. Toss gently in the lemon juice. Pour the apple juice into a pan large enough to accommodate the apples, then add the caster sugar, star anise, the ginger, sliced into coins, and the ginger syrup. Bring to the boil, then lower the heat so the liquid simmers gently.

Lower the fruit into the simmering syrup and leave, partially covered with a lid, until they are tender. They are ready when a skewer will glide effortlessly through their flesh – fifteen to twenty minutes or so.

Lift the fruit from the syrup with a draining spoon and place on a serving dish or in smaller individual dishes. Turn up the heat and bring the syrup to the boil. Serve warm, three halves of fruit per person, in little dishes or glasses with some of the apple- and spice-scented syrup spooned over.

Enough for 3