Compôte of Peaches

Instructions

1. Pare half a dozen ripe peaches, and stew them very softly from eighteen to twenty minutes, keeping them often turned in a light syrup, made with five ounces of sugar, and half a pint of water boiled together for ten minutes.
2. Dish the fruit; reduce the syrup by quick boiling, pour it over the peaches, and serve them hot for a second-course dish, or cold for rice-crust.
3. They should be quite ripe, and will be found delicious dressed thus.
4. A little lemon-juice may be added to the syrup, and the blanched kernels of two or three peach or apricot stones.
5. Proportions: Sugar, 5 oz.; water, 1/2 pint: 10 minutes. Peaches, 6: 18 to 20 minutes.
6. Note: Nectarines, without being pared, may be dressed in the same way, but will require to be stewed somewhat longer, unless they be quite ripe.