Pesche ripiene

Baked peaches with butter and almonds

Peaches, like apricots, have a kernel inside their stone that is reminiscent of bitter almonds. In fact, apricot kernels are sometimes used instead of bitter almonds to make tiny, domed amaretti biscuits. That’s why there’s such a pleasing symmetry to this dish, in which peaches are stuffed with butter and crushed amaretti, the removed stone having left a perfect hollow. In the absence of amaretti, ground almonds work just as well.

Good things happen when peaches are baked with butter and almonds: the fruit shrivels and its flavor is intensified, the butter and juices create a sticky, rose-tinted syrup, and the amaretti or almonds give a crumbing texture. By the time they’re ready, the peach halves should be slumped as deeply in the dish as my family are in armchairs after Sunday lunch. I think these peaches are best about 45 minutes after coming out of the oven, so they are still just a little warm and the sticky juices are thick but still spoonable. Having said that, I made a tray for a supper last week and they sat for about 5 hours before we finally ate them with a spoonful of mascarpone. If you do keep them overnight, keep them in the fridge, but remember to pull them out about half an hour before eating. I also like two halves for breakfast with Greek yogurt.

serves 4

4 tablespoons soft unsalted butter, plus extra for greasing

4 ripe peaches

6 amaretti biscuits, or scant ½ cup almond flour

¼ cup brown sugar

1 egg yolk

grated zest of 1 organic lemon

mascarpone, to serve

Preheat the oven to 360°F and butter an ovenproof dish.

Rinse the peaches and rub them dry. Cut them in half, remove the stone, and use a teaspoon to scoop away any hard flesh or fragments of stone that might be left in the hollow. Arrange the peach halves cut-side up in the oven dish.

Wrap the amaretti in paper or put them in a small plastic bag, then crush them using a rolling pin. In a small bowl, mash together the butter, sugar, crushed amaretti, egg yolk, and lemon zest. Spoon a walnut-size blob of this mixture into the hollow of each peach half.

Bake for 40 minutes, basting a couple of times, or until the fruit is tender, golden, and a little wrinkled at the edges. Allow the peaches to sit for at least 30 minutes before serving with mascarpone.

Pere al forno con marsala e cannella

Baked pears with Marsala and cinnamon

I ate pears baked with Marsala and scrolls of cinnamon at the River Café restaurant in west London several years before I came to Italy. I think it was the same meal at which I first ate linguine with crab and baked sea bass. It was certainly when I tasted their infamous Chocolate Nemesis, a spectacular pudding made with chocolate, eggs, and sugar that I later tried and failed (and wasted 12 eggs) to make at home in my flat on Haverstock Hill.

Years later in Rome, having been given a bottle of Sicilian Marsala and having rescued my River Café Blue Book, which had been curling at the edges in a damp box in my parents’ garage ever since I moved to Italy, I made these pears for the first time. It’s a simple and clever idea: pears are rubbed with butter (which is one of my favorite recipe instructions), placed in a shallow dish, doused with Marsala, sprinkled with sugar and bits of broken cinnamon stick, and then baked, first under an aluminum foil tent, then uncovered, until they’re tender and sit in a pool of sticky Marsala sauce. The key then is to roll them around in the sauce, letting them soak up as much as possible, and serve them just warm with a blob of mascarpone. Of course, the last pear eaten for breakfast the next day is the best one of all.

serves 6

6 Comice pears

3 tablespoons soft unsalted butter

1 cup dry Marsala

1 cup sugar

2 cinnamon sticks

mascarpone, to serve

Preheat the oven to 360°F. Slice the bottom off each pear so that they sit flat. Using a sharp knife, cut out the central core as best you can. Rub some butter over the skin of each pear and sit them, stalk upward, in an ovenproof dish. Pour over the Marsala, sprinkle on the sugar, and break the cinnamon sticks roughly over the pears. Cover the dish loosely with foil.

Bake for 25 minutes, then remove the foil and reduce the oven temperature to 325°F. Continue baking for another 25 minutes, or until the pears are very tender and slightly shriveled. Serve warm or at room temperature, with some of the sticky juices and a spoonful of mascarpone.