Very Victorian Dried Fruit Compote

My friend Lynn and I had our annual Chinese Auction today, which is practically my favorite thing to do all year.  I love when friends get to have lunch and steal gifts from each other.  Since it was the second luncheon in three days I was throwing I needed to make something easy that could feed 16 and was not seafood since Lynn hates fish.  I made a Prochetta, which is an Italian roast pork loin using Jamie Oliver’s recipe.  It is so good and produces an impressive looking roast.  It helps that I get the meat from Cliff the butcher at Cliff’s Meat Market in Carrboro, NC.

To make the meat more holiday-like I decided to create fruit compote, which I think really, was delicious.  Compote’s were made in Victorian England using dried fruit because that was what they had in the dead of winter and the fruit was reconstituted using port wine.  Now that we have refrigeration and high-speed transportation you can use fresh fruit, but there is something about the texture of the dried fruit that makes this a good enhancement for meat.  The fruit gets soft, but not mushy.  Traditional compote would just be sweet, but I like to add some tang to my sweet so I add vinegar at the end.

Here is the version I made today.

1 cup of water

1 cup of port – not a real expensive one

6 packets of Splenda or ¼ cup of sugar

16 oz. of dried fruits- I used apples, apricots, cherries and cranberries

3 T. chopped crystallized ginger

3 cinnamon sticks

Pinch of salt

3 T. sherry vinegar

In a saucepan add the water and port and Splenda/sugar and bring to a boil.  Chop the larger dried fruit into smaller pieces and add it all to the pot with the cinnamon, ginger and salt.  Bring to a boil and reduce to simmer for 20 minutes.  Remove from heat and add the vinegar.

Store in an air-tight container.  Will keep in the fridge for a couple of weeks.

Trader Joes had a large selection of dried fruits at reasonable prices and a good cheep port for cooking.