Ingredient Title Chef Category

Plum crazy about plums

Stone fruits (cleverly named because they keep a stone centered inside their tasty pulp) such as plums, nectarines, pluots, and cherries, not only make delightful, colorful desserts, but also delicious preserves and sauces. They are a bit too juicy for cakes, cookies and breads but who cares when there are so many other tasty ways to savor them.

Stone fruits can, for the most part, be used interchangeably in recipes. An example would be this recipe for Plum Applesauce. It could easily become cherry, peach or nectarine applesauce.

All fruits take very kindly to being served with yogurt (a sprinkle of raw sugar overall is very nice) and so a recipe for making your own yogurt is given here as well. It is true that you can buy a large assortment of yogurts ranging from awful to very good, most of which have preservatives and artificial sweeteners in their mix. Check the labels before you buy, or make your own as many of my Syrian friends do.

Stone Fruit Applesauce

Smoothly elegant this applesauce pays compliments to ham and pork but also makes a delicious dessert on its own when topped with yogurt, crîme fraise, sour cream or whipped cream. Makes about 6 cups.

2 pounds tart apples, quartered and seeded but not peeled
2 pounds red or black plums, pluots or cherries, seeds removed
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup granulated sugar

Combine ingredients in a heavy pot, cover and cook over medium to low heat, stirring now and then for about 1 hour. The fruit should be very tender and falling apart. If it needs more time let it cook longer. Force the mixture through a large mesh screen. Discard skins.

Plum Crumble

Any juicy variety of plum or peach will work in this make-ahead dessert. If you don't want to make your own vanilla sugar, just add 1/2 teaspoon vanilla to the dry red wine called for in the recipe. Vanilla sugar is nice to have on hand for whipped cream, other things too, of course. Makes 9 servings.

14 plums (gauge amount accordingly if using larger peaches)
1/4 cup granulated sugar
3 tablespoons dry red wine
1 vanilla bean
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup regular rolled oats
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons grated orange or lemon rind
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
5 tablespoons chilled butter, cut in small bits

Preheat oven to 375 F. Spray or grease a 13- by 9-inch baking dish. Combine first 3 ingredients. Split vanilla bean and scrape out seeds. Add the seeds to the plum mixture and bury the bean itself in your sugar canister. Toss mixture gently and scrape into baking pan. Spoon flour into measuring cup and level. In a bowl stir together flour and next 5 ingredients. Cut in butter with a pastry blender until mixture looks like coarse meal. Sprinkle this mixture over the plums in the pan. Bake for 45 minutes or until dish is bubbly and the topping is lightly browned. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Plum Catsup

Serve with sausages, grilled pork or ham. It is also good with scrambled eggs. Plus, try it over ice cream. Makes about 5 cups.

3 pounds plum slices, about 6 cups
2 1/4 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup water
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 cinnamon stick or 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Combine plums and sugar in large bowl; cover and let stand at room temperature for about 8 hours or overnight. Stir together plums and remaining ingredients in a very heavy saucepan. Bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat to medium low and simmer 15 minutes. Uncover and cook about 1 hour, until reduced to 5 cups. Occasionally stir and mash the fruit. Pour into a bowl and cool completely. Discard cinnamon stick. Cover and refrigerate. Keeps about 2 weeks.

Hasen's Homemade Yogurt

One of the best compliments you can pay to any fruit is to top it with good yogurt. Fortunately you do not have to pay store prices, you can make your own which is actually better (and better for you) than any you can buy. Enjoy it plain or stir in fresh fruits or preserves, vanilla extract, lemon zest or honey.

Shirley Hasen was the Syrian-American friend who long ago taught me to make yogurt. In fact she was my first introduction to many wonderful dishes from the Middle East. Making yogurt depends upon having a starter--it is a bit like making bread where you have to have yeast to initiate the action. Shirley, of course, set me up with some of her own delicious yogurt to start my first batch. Also, like the yeast in bread dough, the milk mixture must be kept warm during the process of turning liquid milk into the soft-solid yogurt. This recipe makes 1 quart.

1 quart milk, whole or low-fat
2 tablespoons fresh plain yogurt

Bring milk to a boil and boil for just 1 minute. Let cool to 115 F. Gently stir in the yogurt (the starter) and then pour into a glass bowl. Cover snugly with plastic wrap and set in a warm spot. An oven with a pilot light is ideal (if they exist these days). Or an oven with oven light switched on will also work. Or, you can just put it in a warm corner of the kitchen with a blanket draped tightly over it to keep the drafts at bay. Check the yogurt in 5 hours by tilting the bowl to see if it holds together (it may take as long as 8 hours to set). If the yogurt sets too long or you use too much starter, the result will be watery. After the yogurt has set, refrigerate it. It will firm up a little more after chilling and will keep about a week in the refrigerator.

Plum good plums are plum versatile.

Beverly G. Barbour-Soules
1755 Filbert Street, 1M
San Francisco, CA 94123
Telephone: 415-440-3602
Fax (call 1st): 415-440-3602

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