RED WINE-MACERATED WINTER FRUIT

Red Wine-Macerated Winter Fruit image

Yield Serves 6

Number Of Ingredients 10

1 lemon
3 cups water
1 1/2 cups dry red wine
2 tablespoons sugar
1 cinnamon stick
1/2 large firm-ripe pineapple
1 1/4 pounds mixed dried fruit such as prunes, apricots, figs, and cranberries
Accompaniments:
mascarpone cheese or crème fraîche
cashew orange biscotti

Steps:

Remove zest from lemon with a vegetable peeler and squeeze juice from lemon. In a saucepan bring water to a boil with zest, lemon juice, wine, sugar, and cinnamon stick, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Simmer mixture 15 minutes.
While mixture is simmering, peel and core pineapple and cut into bite-size pieces. Halve figs if using. Pour hot syrup through a sieve into a bowl. Stir pineapple and dried fruit into syrup and cool. Chill fruit, covered, at least 8 hours and up to 2 days.
Serve fruit with mascarpone or crème fraîche and biscotti.