baked peaches | Miz Chef

Emilia Romagna

Hello again. Welcome back to my Regions Italy project, based on La Cucina—The Regional Cooking of Italy by Accademia Italiana della Cucina (The Italian Academy of Cuisine). This week on our journey, we stop in Emilia-Romagna, in northern Italy. The capital of Emilia-Romagna is the well-known city of Bologna, but it’s also home to Modena, which is best known as the place of origin of balsamic vinegar. The recipe I have for you today come, in fact, from that city of black gold (balsamic, that is).

The technical aspects of this recipe weren’t too bad, but there were a couple of points that made me scratch my head. The first thing was the bread. The original recipe called for the “bread of 1 roll soaked in milk and squeezed dry.” What kind of roll? How big? Crust included or just the crumb? How much milk? My conclusions are in the recipe below.

The second thing was in the instructions where it said to whip the egg whites and fold it into the mixture. Well, whip them to what stage? Soft peaks? Stiff peaks? Just until thickened? In the end, I went with soft peaks.

The headnote on this recipe says that in place of the almonds, you can use finely crushed amaretti, which are Italian almond cookies. I haven’t tried this alternative yet, but I’ll bet it’s even better than the original.

Pesche Ripiene

Stuffed Peaches

1 hero roll
½ cup milk
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
8 large ripe peaches
3 large eggs, separated
1 cup sugar
1 cup blanched almonds, finely ground, or 1¼ cup almond flour
Confectioners’ sugar

Remove the crumb from the hero and place it in a bowl. Pour the milk over it and let it soak about 5 minutes.(I used the crust as well, but only because it was really soft.)Place the bread in a mesh strainer and press it with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula and squeeze out as much milk as possible.Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F. Grease a large baking sheet or casserole with the butter.

Cut the peaches in half and remove the pits. Scoop out as much of the flesh as you can, leaving a thin layer, so that you get a shell. Depending on how ripe your peaches are, this may be more or less difficult. If the peaches are very ripe and mushy and you can easily scoop it out with a spoon, then just put the pulp in a bowl. If you have to use a paring knife and the flesh is still solid, place the flesh in a food processor or blender (a mini would be perfect here!). Process until it’s mostly pureed, then transfer it to a bowl.Whisk the egg yolks with the sugar until pale and thick, about 3 to 4 minutes. Add this to the peach pulp. Add the drained bread and almond flour. Mix well.Whip the egg whites until soft peaks form, about 4 to 5 minutes. Fold it into the peach mixture.Fill each peach shell with the filling and place them on the baking sheet. Bake until peaches are tender and filling is somewhat firm, about 30 to 45 minutes.