Another blog post by Braxton Haugen…
The liquid side of culinary arts has always been an undertaking I’ve I found myself fascinated with. Gourmet meals, lavish desserts, and creative snacks, get their fair share of coverage in the culinary media, but what of the drink in which you’re washing everything down? While coming up with ideas to attack in the kitchen, the brainstorming process landed us with a fascinating project to undertake, Kompot. Kompot is a tasty beverage that is typically compiled of various types of fruit. It may be served hot or cold, and requires very little work to end up with a great end product. As you’ll see below, we took some liberties with the recipe, adding a little bit of our own imagination into the pot. Techniques used in this recipe were a little internet research, chopping, slicing, boiling and straining. It was an interesting experience in the kitchen – one I’d recommend trying out if you so desire to explore the beverage side of culinary arts.
Ingredients are in place, collected from the cupboard (figs, prunes, dried pears and honey) and the fruit bowl (apples, oranges, lemons and pineapple).
Slicing a blood orange to toss in the pot for color and flavor.
Mixing, mixing, mixing… smells so good!
While bubbling, a cinnamon stick entered the picture.
For the first round, we opted to try our Kompot warm.
Garnished with some of its ingredients, our favorite way to consume Kompot was on a warm day over ice.
Recipe Collaboration: Kompot or Russian Fruit Punch
- 1 gallon water
- 1/2 cup sugar or raw honey
- 6-10 large figs
- 6-10 large prunes
- 2 apples
- 1/2 cup dried pears
- 1 mandarin orange
- 1 blood orange
- 1 lemon
- 1 pineapple core
- 3 cinnamon sticks
Cut apples into eighths, slice oranges and lemon and chop up pineapple core. Bring all ingredients to a boil in a large stock pot for 10 minutes. Turn off heat and let sit 15-20 minutes. For clear juice, pour through a strainer. For a fuller bodied juice (but depending on the fruit used it could be cloudy), let cool and refrigerate overnight, straining the next day. Kompot can be heated for a warm beverage or served over ice. Keep refrigerated.
We did a few experiments trying to get a more fermented beverage. First, we strained some of the liquid into a quart jar and added an additional tablespoon of raw honey.
We also made a ginger-citrus-honey drink by mixing bottled water with a tablespoon of raw honey, 2 mandarin oranges, 1 sliced lemon and an inch of sliced fresh ginger.
48 hour report: So far none of the fermentation jars have any kind of fizz to them.
72 hour report: Still no detected fermentation. The ginger-citrus-honey drink has a slight bitterness from the citrus rinds. We are drinking this as-is and will try it again using different fruits and another brand of raw honey as this honey may not have had enough bacteria to promote fermentation.
Not only is the Kompot good on its own, but it adds a wonderful fruity sweetness to hot or iced tea.
Kompot Resources: The Kitchn, Natasha’s Kitchen, great video with Laura Miller, and Enjoy Your Cooking. Once you make this one time, you will want to try all kinds of combinations.
