How to poach peaches (and why you should)

I’ve never been very good at leaving things be. I tend to gild the lily. I may plan to do something simple, but I always find myself adding to it, primping, faffing. This is true in every area of life, but never more so than when I’m cooking.

For that reason, this time of year can make me a little uncomfortable. When summer arrives in earnest – as opposed to those brief, misleadingly sunny weekends of late April and mid-May – we are inundated with beautiful fresh fruit. Right now, it’s strawberries, gooseberries, peaches and cherries; raspberries, blackcurrants and figs are just around the corner. And we are told over and over that it is impossible to improve on ripe, raw fruit, fresh from the tree.

But I promise you (and this is not just me being a fusspot): there are occasions when it is worth cooking ripe, seasonal fruit; where it improves the fruit, and heightens its deliciousness. Even the loveliest strawberries become more fragrant, brighter, when macerated with the smallest amount of sugar; stewing gooseberries tempers their acidity, balancing it; cooked blackberries smell of violets and taste of wine. And a peach, poached, is an impossibly elegant pudding.

A poached peach is calmer than a fresh one, less extroverted: it won’t splurge its juices over you. Instead, all those juices are contained, as if the flavour has been concentrated. It’s prettier too (although to say so may be sacrilege): blanching the peaches before poaching makes them easy to peel, but has the added advantage that the rosy pink of the skin stains the flesh a beautiful blush.

There is something pleasing about serving a whole, intact peach, like presenting a whole world in a bowl. But if you don’t fancy having to contend with a stone when eating, you can halve and pit the fruit before poaching: just reduce the cooking time to ten minutes.