This week’s TBT recipes is primed for peach season. The peaches are here and they are ripe. They are quite sweet and, thankfully, they have some legs: they do not ripen and then rot in the blink of your eye. But do, after you have purchased your peaches, get that bottle of wine and go to work. You’ll love the combo of peaches and pineapple juice!
Here’s the post from just a couple of years ago:
My wife Suzi has 100 to 200 people a week come into our kitchen and cook meals. She runs the hands-on cooking school Cooking by the Book and teams visit here to have fun, learn, and enjoy a perfect meal.
That perfection comes in part from our ingredients. We use the same suppliers as major restaurants and, with that many people each week, we buy in bulk. So, at the end of a peach dessert week, when we had bought cases of peaches, we had some perfectly ripe peaches left.
I had eaten peaches all week long, so by Saturday I just wanted to drink peaches, not eat them.
This is an exceptionally wonderful sangria recipe and quite unusual. There are peaches here, obviously, and the usual brandy but also lots of orange and pineapple juice. That particular combination of peach and pineapple is marvelous.
Oh, yes, the peaches are not just cut up and added into your pitcher. They are first processed in a blender along with sugar syrup to form a thick, rich peach base for the brandy and juices.
This will be your “go to” vehicle for peaches from now into the fall. It’s the way to deal with “very ripe” peaches that you can barely peel and really don’t want to eat. But you can drink. Happily.
Peach Sangria
Yield: 4-6 cocktails
Ingredients:
- ¼ cup sugar
- ½ cup water, divided
- 2 peaches, peeled, halved and pitted
- 1 [750 ml] bottle of white Spanish table wine, such as Albarino, Viura, or Verdejo
- 3 ounces brandy
- 1 cup orange juice
- 1 cup pineapple juice
- Fresh peaches, oranges, and apples, dice [optional]
Preparation:
In a small nonreactive saucepan over moderately high heat, combine the sugar and ¼ cup of the water and bring to a boil. Boil for 2 minutes, stirring constantly to dissolve the sugar, then remove from the heat and let cool.
In a blender, combine the peaches with the remaining ¼ cup of water and puree until smooth, at least 3 minutes. Strain and reserve the puree.
Pour the remaining ingredients in a large pitcher along with the simple syrup and peach puree. Stir in the dice fruits, if using. Refrigerate the pitcher, covered for 8 to 48 hours. Server over ice.
Source: Peaches by Kelly Alexander [Savor the South Cookbooks, 2013]
Photo Information: Canon T2i, EFS 60mm Macro Lens, F/4 for 1/30th second at ISO‑250