Recipe: Use very ripe fruit in this dish for best flavor
I dearly love peaches, and have long wanted to make the chilled peach soup recipe in "The Perfect Peach," published in 2013 by the peach-farming Masumoto family.
The cookbook is full of sweet and savory dishes as well as stories by David Mas Masumoto, whose family has grown heirloom peaches in the San Joaquin Valley for generations. (He gained national acclaim for the memoir "Epitaph for a Peach" in 1995, and has written other books since.)
Marcy Masumoto, his wife, developed this particular recipe. Interestingly, I found her version too creamy and not "peachy" enough. So the recipe below reflects my changes. The carrot puree may seem an odd inclusion, but it does give the soup some depth, and contributes to the lovely color.
I found some beautiful ripe peaches at our local fruit stand, but also included one of my six precious Honey Babe peaches, the total harvest from my miniature backyard peach tree. The peach nectar in the recipe is found in soda-like aluminum cans, usually in a store's juice section.
Chilled peach soup
Serves 4 to 6 as appetizer or brunch dish
Ingredients:
1 medium carrot, peeled and sliced or diced, about 1/2 cup
2 to 3 very ripe peaches (the Masumotos call them "gushers")
1/2 teaspoon grated fresh ginger root
1 teaspoon freshly squeezed lime juice
1/2 cup plain low-fat Greek yogurt
6 tablespoons canned peach nectar, divided
2 tablespoons half-and-half
Kosher salt
For garnish:
2 fresh peaches, one peeled and diced, the other thinly sliced, peeling optional (depends on how fuzzy it is)
Instructions:
Place the carrot pieces in a small saucepan and cover with about 1 cup cold water. Bring to a boil and then simmer on medium heat 5 to 7 minutes, until a knife point can easily pierce a carrot piece. Set the pan aside for the carrots to cool; do not drain.
Peel the 2 to 3 "gusher" peaches by cutting an X into the pointed end and dropping them into a bowl of hot water for a few minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer them to a bowl of ice water for a minute, then peel.
Slice the peeled peaches into the container of a blender. Blend on medium high until they are fully pureed. Pour out into a liquid measuring cup. You should have at least 1 cup of puree.
Don't clean the blender yet: Place the cooked carrots and 1/2 cup of their cooking liquid in the blender container and puree it. Pour in the peach puree, pulse to blend, then add the grated ginger, the lime juice, yogurt, 4 tablespoons of the peach nectar, and the half-and-half.
Pour into a bowl or other large glass container, cover tightly, and chill at least 1 hour or overnight.
Before serving, add about 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt, then taste the soup. Adjust the taste and consistency by using more peach nectar, more salt or more lime juice, as preferred.
To serve, place a generous 1 tablespoon of the diced garnish peach in the bottom of a chilled bowl or ice cream dish. Pour about 1/2 cup of soup over the diced peaches, then garnish with 2 thin slices of the other garnish peach.
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Garden Checklist for week of May 12
Get your gardening chores and irrigation done early in the day before temperatures rise.
* Plant, plant, plant! It’s prime planting season in the Sacramento area. Time to set out those tomato transplants along with peppers and eggplants. Pinch off any flowers on new transplants to make them concentrate on establishing roots instead of setting premature fruit.
* Direct-seed melons, cucumbers, summer squash, corn, radishes, pumpkins and annual herbs such as basil.
* Harvest cabbage, lettuce, peas and green onions. This heat will cause leafy greens and onions to flower; pick them before they bolt.
* In the flower garden, direct-seed sunflowers, cosmos, salvia, zinnias, marigolds, celosia and asters.
* Plant dahlia tubers. Other perennials to set out include verbena, coreopsis, coneflower and astilbe.
* Transplant petunias, marigolds and perennial flowers such as astilbe, columbine, coneflowers, coreopsis, dahlias, rudbeckia and verbena.
* Keep an eye out for slugs, snails, earwigs and aphids that want to dine on tender new growth.
* Feed summer bloomers with a balanced fertilizer.
* For continued bloom, cut off spent flowers on roses as well as other flowering plants.
* Got fruit trees? If you haven't already done so, thin orchard fruit such as apples, peaches, pears, pluots and plums before they grow too heavy, breaking branches or even splitting the tree. Leave the largest fruit on the branch, culling the smaller ones, and allow for 5 to 6 inches (or a hand's worth) between each fruit.
* Thin grape bunches, again leaving about 6 inches between them. For the remaining bunches, prune off the "tail" end, about the bottom third of the bunch, so that the plant's energy is concentrated in the fruit closest to the branch.
* As spring-flowering shrubs finish blooming, give them a little pruning to shape them, removing old and dead wood. Lightly trim azaleas, fuchsias and marguerites for bushier plants.
* Add mulch to the garden to help keep that precious water from evaporating. Mulch also cuts down on weeds. But don’t let it mound around the stems or trunks of trees or shrubs. Leave about a 6-inch to 1-foot circle to avoid crown rot or other problems.