Puréed fruit, all by itself, makes a light and delicious sauce. Both raw and cooked fruit make excellent purées, and both are easy to prepare with nearly any fruit, from berries to peaches, melons to apples. Cook fruit long enough and it will start to “purée” itself: As the liquid cooks out, it becomes syrupy or jammy and its flavors condense, as in Fruit Jam or Apple Butter.
The basic techniques you’ll use to make any of these recipes are excellent ways to make the most of good produce year-round, and the sauces themselves run such a wide range that they can accompany nearly any recipe in this book. They can liven up the richest, densest desserts—like a puddle of tart raspberry sauce with Flourless Chocolate Cake—yet are delicate enough to go with Angel Food Cake; you can find them at breakfast or over ice cream.
The best tool for puréeing fruit is a blender: It’s quick and makes a smooth (if not always velvety) purée. The food processor is equally quick and purées soft or cooked fruit like a dream, although the results with hard fruit like raw apples aren’t quite as smooth as they would be with a blender. The third option is the hand method; use a fork or potato masher—this works well only for cooked or very soft fruit and is more time-consuming.
Obviously, you want to first remove large pits, seeds, thick or tough skin, stems, and other inedible bits. Whichever method you use, you may also press the purée through a fine-mesh strainer; it’s necessary to get rid of any tiny seeds or errant fibers and optional if you just want to remove unwanted bits of flesh or skin. You will probably need to use a wooden spoon or the back of a ladle to press as much as you can from the pulp; be sure to scrape the underside of the strainer to remove every last drop of purée. What you get will be blissfully smooth.
Occasionally you’ll want to add liquid to the purée—for flavoring, sweetness, or simply if the fruit is hard and needs some liquid to start blending. Fruit juice, water, cream, and lemon or lime juice are good options, depending on the type of fruit you’re using and your plans for the sauce. If you’re adding liquid only for the purpose of getting the purée going, add it by the tablespoonful so you don’t add more than you need and dilute the fruit flavor.
Purées made from raw apples, pears, and bananas will brown quickly; to minimize this, don’t make them too far in advance and always add a squeeze or two of lemon or lime juice. To be really careful, coat the fruit and cutting board in the citrus juice before chopping and add a few drops after each cut. There will still be some browning, but this keeps it to a minimum.