The great chef Auguste Escoffier himself invented this dessert in 1893 to honor Dame Nellie Melba, the famous Australian opera singer. Her real name was Helen Porter Mitchell, but she took Melba—a shortened version of Melbourne, her hometown—as her stage name. Thank goodness. Peach Mitchell doesn’t have nearly the romance.
Escoffier poached his peaches in wine and honey, but if you have good tree-ripened peaches, they’ll be just perfect raw, as long as they’re juicy and soft enough to eat with a spoon. Make sure to use a freestone rather than cling peaches, because they need to maintain their shape.
SERVINGS
Serves 4
INGREDIENTS
2 cups red raspberries
1/4 cup sugar
Freshly squeezed lemon juice
2 tree-ripened freestone peaches
1 pint high quality vanilla ice cream
PREPARATION
1. Start by making a sauce from the raspberries. Place the berries and sugar in a medium nonreactive saucepan and heat on low until the raspberries release their juice and the sugar dissolves. Mash the berries and turn the mixture into a fine sieve set over a bowl. With the edge of a spoon, scrape the mixture back and forth against the mesh to express the syrupy juice into the bowl, leaving the dry pulp and seeds behind. Add a little lemon juice to give it just a slight tang.
2. Blanch the peaches in boiling water for a minute, then plunge them into ice water. Before you remove the skins, cut along the suture (the slightly raised line that runs the circumference of the peach) to the pit, all the way around the peach. Twist the halves in opposite directions and remove the pit, and then remove the skins from the halves.
3. Place each peach half in a small bowl, cut side up. Place a scoop of vanilla ice cream in the hollow of the peach half, and drizzle raspberry syrup all over the ice cream and peach.
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