4-5 large, very ripe white peaches, 1/2 tsp lemon juice, 5 egg yolks, 150 g sugar, 2 cl peach liqueur, 1/2 litre whipped cream.
Cut the peaches in half and remove them from the stone, which is no problem with ripe peaches. Leave the skin on as the fruit, cut into pieces, is pureed with the shredding wand. Drizzle the puree with lemon juice, you don't want it to turn brown.
Whip the egg yolks well with a hand mixer, not too briefly, drizzle in the sugar and pour in the liqueur. Keep whisking until the sugar has dissolved. Now add the peach puree. Finally, fold in the very stiffly whipped cream and freeze the parfait mixture in the freezer, preferably overnight. Let it thaw a little in the fridge an hour before serving.
Raspberry sauce goes well with this, made from 250 g raspberries, sugar and raspberry brandy.
Cook the fruit with a dash of wine and some sugar until soft, pass through a sieve, taste and round off with the brandy.
Soupe de Pêche, peach soup
4 to 6 ripe, fragrant white peaches, 1/4 l champagne, mint leaves
Cut peaches in half, remove stones, peel and cut into thin wedges. Divide among dessert plates, pour over cold champagne and garnish with the mint.
"Kuller peach"
Per person, 1 small, ripe peach. 1 bottle of champagne
Place one of the neatly grated peaches in each champagne glass, prick it on all sides with a silver needle and pour the chilled champagne over it at the table - "whereupon the little peach begins to roll merrily - to the delight of all childish minds!"
Peaches, juicy and fragrant, are messengers of summer
Julie Récamier, as beautiful as she was clever, maintained a famous salon in Paris at the beginning of the 19th century. Century in Paris a famous salon. Once she fell so ill that she could neither eat nor drink - until they brought her peaches in syrup. She ate them ravenously and promptly recovered.
Peaches apparently have salutary effects, too. As children we saw in them messengers of summer, actually harbingers, because the first ones that appeared in the village shop were not bought yet, because they were, like the first tomatoes, still too expensive.
When there were finally peaches, you knew it already when you entered the kitchen, so unmistakably they smelled. They were quite small fruits with white, sometimes red flesh, but what an aroma emanated from them! In their season the children did not have to be urged to eat the fruit diligently, so greedily did we devour the peaches. Admittedly, the fruits were very sensitive to pressure, therefore difficult to transport and rotted easily. They were increasingly replaced by the robust yellow-fleshed peaches, which were far from being able to compete with white and red peaches in terms of tenderness and aroma. They seemed to have died out at some point, and my interest in peaches waned considerably, the yellow "canned peaches" tasted too boring, and there was no longer any question of really juicy ones either.
Enough lamenting, meanwhile, the variety of peaches on offer leaves little to be desired, at least not at Klaus Gasser, whose shop in the "Orscheler" pedestrian zone is most pleasingly assorted. It is a real pleasure to see how popular his excellently presented range of fine fruit and vegetables is, and not just among well-heeled pensioners. Many a complaining colleague could take a leaf out of his book. Good peaches, Gasser knows, must be heavy in the hand, then they are also juicy. Really ripe ones smell good; if they are otherwise flawless, they can be stored for 1-2 days until they are "mouthmature". Gasser's peaches are white or yellow in July and come from France and Italy; German fruits, the first from the Bergstrasse, take until mid-August. The small, white "Alexandre" from Provençe, where Gasser says the best peaches are grown. Excellent large, yellow-fleshed peaches also come from there. You still have to wait for the red varieties, including the small vineyard peaches.
Good peaches are not only sweet and juicy, but also have a fine, fresh acidity, are made for summer desserts, Provençal soupe de pêche or peach parfait, for example. Grete Willinsky's "Kochbuch der Büchergilde" from 1958, reprinted unchanged, provides information about the "Kullerpfirsich", the high point of adventure gastronomy in the 1950s.
Fruit House Gasser
Klaus Gasser
Vorstadt 25
61440 Oberursel
Phone: 06171 - 55505
Opening hours: Mon-Fri 7am-1pm, Sat 6(!)-14pm
from Waldemar Thomas