Simmered Peach Crostinis with brie and pistachios
Summer peaches are in full swing, and while I far prefer to eat them as nature made them, with sticky peach juice dripping down my arms, there comes a time when you simply can't eat them all in time.
This recipe is designed to harness and highlight the distinctive and complex flavors of the great American peach. Depending on the variety, most peaches have floral, tart, and vanilla flavors, changing based on the variety, geographic region, and time of year. As a general rule, white peaches are more subtle in flavor, while yellow peaches are going to exhibit more prominent complexities.
You may have noticed the blog has been less active this summer. That is because I have been studying, experimenting, and testing/retesting/recalculating/retesting ad nauseum. In particular, I have been reading and studying salt, including when to add it, how much to add, what it does to flavors and textures, and how to use it to summon chemical reactions for desired results. In general, gastronomic experts and chefs say "salt makes things taste more like themselves," which I find to be a good way to describe it in most cases, if it's applied properly.
For this recipe, you'll want to diversify your salt stores to include both table salt and coarse sea salt. The table salt is going to be used to pre-season the peaches and accelerate the chemical reactions that elicit oaky, tart, and floral notes while helping draw out moisture to make a syrupy, jam-adjacent spoonful. The coarse salt will be used in final seasoning. The rationale here is that salt takes time to infuse into things and it infuses more quickly under three conditions - time, temperature, and water solubility. Coarser salt diffuses more slowly, so is best used as a topper to prepare the palate for the nuances that accompany it.
Ok, enough about salt. Let's get cooking.
The finished product basking in the waning sunlight of a late summer day.
Ingredients:
1 large baguette, sliced into one-inch thick rounds
1 block Brie cheese (double creme if you can get it)
Six ripe peaches, pitted and sliced into wedges
1 cup pistachios, shelled, roasted, and lightly salted
1 tsp table salt
1 ounce brandy
1 tbsp butter
2 pink peppercorns
To Make:
In a medium-sized pot, melt the butter with the pink peppercorns on medium heat. Once the butter begins to foam, remove the peppercorns and add peach slices and table salt. Stir and reduce heat to medium-low. Stir every few minutes until the mixture begins to stick to the pan.
Deglaze the peaches with brandy and simmer on low for 10-15 minutes until the alcohol burns off and the mixture becomes jam-like in texture. Remove from heat.
Preheat the oven to a high broil and then toast one side of each slice of bread on a cookie sheet.
Once toasted, turn, add slices of Brie to your preference, and turn off the broiler.
Place pistachios in a pan on medium-low heat and toast the pistachios just until the oil from the nuts begins to glisten on the bottom of the pan. Stir often.
Remove the toast from the oven once the Brie is melted, spoon peach mixture over the top, then toasted pistachios.
Add a pinch of coarse sea salt to each, then serve.
I like to serve this with a cold, buttery Chardonnay as an appetizer before making dinner. These are a great precursor to a roast chicken with summer vegetables.
Bon Appetit!