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Dried Fruit Compote & Fourme d'Ambert

A creamy blue cheese pairs beautifully with fruit compote for an easy, festive cheese course. This recipe is nice for mid-winter since it doesn’t rely on fresh fruit. The concentrated sweet and tart flavors and firmness of dried fruits provide interesting contrast, and the jewel-like colors are very pretty against a blue veined cheese. You can use almost any dried fruit – cherries, apricots, pears, plums, figs, and raisins are especially good – just be sure to have a variety of colors and sizes.

Dried Fruit Compote & Fourme d’Ambert
Serves 6-8

1 pound assorted dried fruit (if any are large – like pears – cut them into bite sized pieces)
2 cups white wine (avoid anything aged in oak)
1 cup water
¾ to1 cup sugar (if your fruit is all sweet, use the lower amount)
1 cinnamon stick
3-4 whole cloves
½ teaspoon black peppercorns
1 bay leaf
1 tablespoon kirsch
Lemon juice (optional)

3/4 pound delicious blue cheese

Bring the wine, water, sugar and spices to a simmer in a small sauce pan. Starting with the lightest color fruit, poach each kind separately until it is tender (don’t let it get mushy!) Depending on your fruit, this will take anywhere from two to fifteen minutes per kind. Taste the liquid between each fruit – when the spices start to stand out, remove them before adding the next fruit. After all the fruit has been cooked, continue to simmer the liquid until it is reduced by a third. (This is why you need to remove the spices when they start to be noticeable. Otherwise, when you reduce the liquid, the spices will dominate the dish.) Let sit until cool, then stir in the kirsch. If the flavor seems a little flat, add a squeeze of lemon juice. Pour over the fruit. Serve alongside a lovely blue cheese like Fourme d’Ambert, Colston Bassett Stilton, or Peña Corado.

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