Prune Sauce Recipes

Steps:

• Place 3 cups of water in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil. Turn off the heat, add the tea bags, and steep for 5 minutes. Discard the tea bags, add the prunes and honey, turn the heat to medium-high, and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer uncovered for 3 minutes to plump the prunes.
• Pour the prunes and all the liquid into a medium bowl and stir in the Armagnac, vanilla, orange juice, vanilla bean, and cinnamon sticks. With a vegetable peeler, cut 4 large strips of zest from 1 lemon and add to the mixture. Cut the lemon in half, cut 4 (1/2-inch-thick) slices, and add to the bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and set aside at room temperature for 6 to 12 hours. (If you're not serving the prunes that day, refrigerate them in their liquid.)
• To serve, place the prunes in shallow dessert bowls and serve cold, at room temperature, or slightly warmed, spooning the macerating liquid over them. Add a scoop of ice cream, a drizzle of Armagnac, a drizzle of honey, and a sprinkling of grated lemon zest. (You'll be surprised how much flavor this adds!) Serve immediately.

Steps:

• Peel, core, and slice apples.
• In a large pot, bring apples, lemon juice, prunes, vanilla and 2 cups water to a boil over high. Reduce heat and simmer until apples are very soft and falling apart, 25 to 30 minutes.
• Mash with a potato masher or pulse in a food processor until smooth with small chunks remaining. Add sugar.
• Let cool, then transfer applesauce to airtight containers.

Steps:

• Pat chicken thouroughly dry with paper towel and sprinkle sides with salt and pepper In a 10 to 12-inch skillet melt two tablespoons of butter and two tablespoons of oil over high heat.
• Add chicken skin-side down and reduce heat to moderate.
• Fry until sides are golden brown.
• (Don't worry if the inside is pink, we will be cooking the chicken more later) Transfer the chicken to a plate.
• Add the celery, carrot, and onion to the fat remaining in pan, stirring occasionally, and cook until the vegetables are soft but NOT brown.
• Return the chicken to the pan and lay the parsley and bay leaf on top.
• Pour in 1/2 cup of chicken broth.
• Bring to a boil over high heat.
• Lower the heat and simmer for thirty minutes, basting it from time to time with the juices in the pan Meanwhile, in a saucepan, combine 1 1/2 cups of water, the 1 1/2 cups of prunes, the lemon juice, and the sugar.
• Place on high heat.
• Bring prunes to a boil and simmer for 30 minutes or until prunes are tender.
• Preheat the oven to 250 degrees F.
• Remove the chicken from the skillet and arrange attractively on an ovenproof platter.
• Scatter the cooked prunes over the top.
• Cover the platter loosely with foil and put it into the oven.
• Press hard on the vegetables with a spoonback releasing the juices.
• Discard vegetables.
• Set juices aside.
• Melt two tablespoons of butter in the skillet and add the flour.
• Cook on high heat until flour is golden brown.
• Pour in the 1/2 cup of reserved prune juice and the 1/2 cup of reserved pan juices (if there is less then 1/2 cup, make up for it by augmenting it with the chicken broth) Boil until sauce is smooth and thickened.
• Serve at once.