5 Minute Fig and Prune Compote

The 5 minute compote with figs, prunes and a bit more.  Prunes have always been so unfashionable, well not anymore.  At least in the Beach House, they are very cool.

This is really quick and easy, perfect for a busy lifestyle.  No stewing required and only dried fruit from the cupboards needed.  Just chop the fruit, boil the kettle, leave in a fridge overnight. Thats it!  Naturally sweet and zesty compote. Our kind of fast food!

I love the flavour of the rich figs and prunes with the lemon and tea balancing the flavours and sweetness nicely.  Figs always remind me of Morocco, where I ate them by the ropes length (you buy them thread whole onto a rough length of rope). I normally opted for a foot-long! I was doing a lot of walking at the time.

We use this compote mainly on muesli, but it goes great with yoghurt and seeds as a healthy dessert or even in a smoothie that needs a sweetness kick.

This compote is designed to be kept in the fridge, not jarred. But you could experiment, like most things, it will get better with age!

This recipe will make enough for a decent bowl full of sweet fruity goodness.  I added fresh plums here also, we managed to get some amazingly sweet local ones.  When chopping the fruit, we like to keep them nice and chunky.

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5 Minute Fig and Prune Compote

The Bits

3 fresh plums (pitted and chopped, you may like to take the skins off)

4 dried figs (chopped)

6 dried apricots (unsulphured are best, chopped)

6 big fat prunes (chopped)

zest of 1 lemon (ribbons is best)

1 cup of hot black tea.

Do It
Make two cups of black tea (no milk!), one for you, one for the compote. Then leave to cool slightly while you chop the fruit and peel the zest off the lemon (use a good French peeler, so much easier, you could waste years of your life peeling spuds and zest!).

I now put it all into a tupperware dish, pour in the slightly cooled tea (removing the tea bag), allow to cool, then pop lid on and into the fridges.

That’s it!

Serve

Yoghurt, cereals, seeds, on top of cake, in a smoothie…………………………..

We Love It!

A good dose of natural sweetness and plenty of fibre from the prunes and apricots, leave the belly sweet and full.

Foodie Fact

Prunes are historically good for getting things moving down under. ‘Regularity’ I believe is a commonly used term.  That will be the high soluble fibre content.

Back in the olden days (that’s the ’80’s by the way) prunes seemed to be almost medicinal, something you ate with a degree of suffrage.  But they are delicious and contain rare phytonutrients and beta carotene (in the form of vitamin A) which have a huge benefit on your inner workings, cells, brain and all.