[Sca-cooks] vanilla beans

[Pixel, Goddess and Queen]

On Mon, 3 Dec 2001, Stefan li Rous wrote:

>
> However, I did buy several vanilla beans from the Pepper's Guild at
> this last Pennsic. Can someone tell me how to use the things? I'd also
> be interested in hearing any good things to do with them. Period
> recipes preferred, but other recipes/ideas welcome, also.
>
Vanilla-bourbon peaches. Mmmmmm.

It's Maida Heatter's recipe. You make a  light sugar syrup with a healthy
addition of some good bourbon and the scraped-out innards of a vanilla
bean. Blanch your peaches whole and skin them, then poach them gently in
the syrup until they are tender. I usually cook my syrup down a bit and
then add more bourbon to taste. Serve it warm over vanilla ice
cream. Mmmmmm.

I don't know how well this would work with artificial sweetener, though,
as I have never tried making a syrup with the fake stuff. The peaches are
good by themselves without the additional syrup, though.

Margaret