What to do with mirabelles

We love mirabelles. They are a type of yellow plum, that is very delicious. Like other stone fruit, mirabelles are mild in flavor when fresh, and more tart when cooked. Our neighbor has a mirabelle tree with a few branches hanging into our backyard, and just from those we get quite a harvest every year.

Mirabelle tree in spring...

... and in summer. Here, most of the fruits have already fallen down.

There's two problems with mirabelles: 1) they all ripen within a few days, and 2) once ripe, they don't keep very well (which is probably why you usually don't see them in stores). So you'll get a lot of them at once, and then you'll have to act quickly before they go bad. Once they are ripe, they fall easily off the tree (shaking the branches also helps). This year we put out a plastic tarp under the branches, and that made things a lot easier. Here are a few things you can do with them (besides just eating them raw, which also works really well).

Wash and halve them, and take out the pits. With that, you can make:

• Mirabelle cake: recipe will follow.

• Mirabelle clafoutis: try for example this recipe. 

• Store them in the freezer: Place the pitted fruits in a thin layer in a ziplock bag and freeze them, for more cake throughout the year.

Pitting is a lot of work - here's an alternative, if you are going to make something jam-like anyway: Wash the mirabelles, throw them in a big pot with some of water (about one cup), and slowly heat them to boiling, stirring constantly. Careful that they don't burn. If they do: don't scratch the bottom, or you'll end up with tiny black flakes everywhere. Once everything is boiled soft, let it cool a bit. Mush the remaining intact fruits with a potato masher or something similar. Then scoop the mixture into a big-holed colander/wide-mesh strainer that is placed above another pot, to filter off the stones. Use something as wide as possible, it really just has to hold back the stones. Otherwise it will take too long. I used our plastic pasta colander. You might have to stir the mixture inside the colander to get the puree through. With this fruit puree you can make:

• Mirabelle jam: Add sugar to taste (probably about 2:1 puree to sugar), boil it to thicken it down (don't forget to stir), and fill into sterilized glasses while hot. There's no need to add pectin, as it's already pretty thick. There's lots of more detailed recipes out there.

• Mirabelle chutney: recipe will follow.

• Mirabelle ice cream: mix 4 cups of the above puree, 1 pint of heavy whipping cream, and 1.5 cups of sugar together in the blender. Cool the mixture in the fridge, then pour it into your ice cream maker and follow the manufacturer's instructions. This gives a soft, very intense and refreshingly tart, delicious ice cream. Use less purree/more sugar to make it milder/sweeter.

• Store it in the freezer: pour the puree into ice cube trays, freeze, and fill frozen cubes into a plastic bag. Make more ice cream at a later point, or experiment with it in cocktails.

Speaking of alcohol - you can make infusions by soaking mirabelles (washed, whole) for a couple of weeks or months in wodka, rum, or gin. This method also brings out the tartness of the fruits, so sweeten it by adding sugar afterwards.

Lastly, you can make compote, either with pitted or unpitted mirabelles, water and sugar (quantities are really up to, depending on how liquidy or sweet you like it), which you boil in a pot until the fruits are soft. Keep it in the fridge for a few days, or fill it into sterilized jars while still hot.

     Christian