Curried Fruit – A Family Favorite

Among our family and friends, shared meals and delicious food are an essential part of connection, a time to enjoy each other and strengthen the ties that enrich our lives. To that end, I’ll be adding some of my favorite recipes to Heartspoken. I invite you to send me your favorites too, preferably with a photo and the backstory about why it’s significant or memorable to you.

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Serves 8. 

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This delicious recipe was adapted from one called “Curried Fruit for Robert” out of Katie Mundy’s Fashions in Foods cookbook (out of print, Lynchburg, VA). Katie was a caterer who catered both my mother’s wedding in 1948 and my own in 1972. 

Ingredients

8 pear halves, drained
8 peach halves, drained
12 apricot halves, drained
1 (20-oz) can pineapple chunks or tidbits, drained
2 lemons, sliced in eight circles, seeds removed
1 cup brown sugar
½ cup white sugar
1-1/2 sticks butter, melted
1-1/2 tsp. curry powder
½ cup light rum (I’ve used medium or dark and it tastes fine, but the color is darker)

Directions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Using a 3-qt. shallow casserole dish, place the drained pears and peaches on the bottom. Top with the drained apricots and pineapple. Place the lemon slices on top (these are for flavor and decoration but should probably not be served).

Make a sauce by melting the butter in a medium to large saucepan, adding the sugars, and curry powder. Carefully add the rum (it will foam up) and mix well. Pour the sauce over the fruit.

Bake in preheated oven for 20 minutes.

Elizabeth’s notes

The recipe says “This can be served cold or hot.” My advice would be to serve it either at room temperature or hot. The butter solidifies when it’s cold and is unattractive, even though the fruit still tastes good.

It can be served with a slotted spoon and put on a plate with the rest of your food, but the juice/rum sauce is so good that I prefer to serve it in small bowls with a spoon.