Marak Perot – Simple Eastern European Jewish dessert recipe for Marak Perot, also known as Compote or Fruit Soup, with apricots, dried plums and lemon juice.
This recipe is one of the first dishes that appeared on my blog. It has been updated and rephotographed for 2014!
Not long after I started this blog, I wrote about a traditional Shabbat dinner that I cooked with my friends Etti and Bella Hadar. Etti had a family a memoir written by her late uncle, Dov Shimon Levin, a soldier in the Jewish Infantry Brigade who fought the Nazis during World War II. In his memoir, he wrote a detailed account of his life in the Pinsk region of Poland prior to the war. Being a lover of Ashkenazi cuisine, Uncle Dov wrote some amazing descriptions of the foods he enjoyed as a child. Etti and I pieced together a menu from the memoirs and recreated a traditional Polish Shabbat dinner using their family recipes.
Reading through Uncle Dov’s memoir, we came upon a dish called marak perot. It was the first time I’d ever heard the term. Marak perot is Hebrew for “fruit soup,” which is a pretty accurate description. It’s more widely known as “compote,” a dessert made from dried and fresh fruits, water, sugar and lemon juice. The fruit is slowly simmered as a soup, then chilled. It makes for a very refreshing dessert, a light and lovely way to end a heavy meal.
The marak perot recipe that appears here is from the Levin family memoirs. Once you get the basic concept feel free to improvise on the dish, adding your favorite fruits and spices to change things up. It can also be pureed for a sauce-like texture. Oh, and… by the way… the recipe includes prunes. Don’t cringe, please. When did prunes earn such a stigma? Let’s all agree to drop the collective prune disdain, shall we? Or we can just call them dried plums, if that makes you more comfortable… a little rebranding, long overdue, for an under-appreciated and tasty treat!
Are you familiar with this dessert? What do you call it– marak perot, compote, fruit soup or something different?
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Marak Perot - Compote
6 servings
2 hours
1 hour 30 minutes
Parve, Kosher for Passover
Description
Simple Eastern European Jewish dessert recipe for Marak Perot, also known as Compote or Fruit Soup, with apricots, dried plums and lemon juice.
Ingredients
- 3 apples, peeled, cored and thinly sliced
- 2 cups dried plums
- 1 cup dried apricots
- 3/4 cup raisins
- 1/4 cup sugar (you may omit or use your favorite sweetener to taste if desired)
- 1 1/2 tbsp fresh lemon juice, or more to taste
Instructions
Place apples, dried plums, dried apricots and raisins in a pot and cover 4 cups water. Bring to a boil, stir in sugar till dissolved.
Reduce heat to medium low and cover. Simmer for 1 ½ hours, stirring occasionally, until the water becomes a thick syrup and the prunes begin to dissolve. Remove the lid for the last 10-15 minutes of cooking so the liquid reduces.
Remove fruit from heat and let it slowly return to room temperature. Squeeze the fresh lemon juice in, adding more to taste if desired. The lemon juice brightens up the flavor tremendously.
Put the fruit in the refrigerator until it is fully chilled, at least 2 hours. Serve by ¾ cup portions in glass compote dishes.
I pulled the “short straw” and was tasked with making compote for the family Seder. Tried your recipe with a few changes: skipped the sugar b/o my Paleo son, and added the juice of 1/2 fresh orange and substituted pears for apples. Also added 2 cardamon pod, 1/2 inch ginger root that I made slices into, but didn’t cut through, and a cinnamon stick while simmering. Later picked those 3 things back out before serving. The BEST! Folks asked for leftovers. Thanks for a great recipe.
That sounds delicious, I love spiced fruit.
I’m trying to equal my mother’s recipe, this comes closest though she didn’t add sugar because we ate it as a savory side dish to dinner. Mother was Litvak in her cooking, and used half the sugar of her Galitziana sister-in-law! But we always used golden raisins; if she didn’t have those she didn’t make it at all!
this is a great recipe!!!!!! it comes out looking just like your pictures. i could eat stewed cow patties if they were done with apricots and prunes.
people who say nietch to prunes should withhold judgment until they have tried them soaked in amaranth and dipped in tempered dark chocolate.
Compote, aka stewed fruit, was a staple in my house growing up. Now, my lapsed catholic husband loves it! BTW, my mother told me that as a girl, she and her friends used the prune juice (floimen yoich?) to set their hair. Better than beer!
My Litvak Grandma called it Compote, and I made it when my wife brought a box of prunes back from America. Memories–all good! Thanks.