Make a 'kompott'

Sometimes retro is the answer: What's old is suddenly new, the culturally outdated is norm once again.  

• 

  Kompott—a retro dessert.

• Make it like Mormor, make a kompott (or compote or stewed fruit). A compote is a delightful retro dessert that’s perfect for the winter months, while we wait for the season of fruit to kick in. It is simple to make, and simple is good. According to Wikipedia, a compote is a sweet dish of fruit or berries cooked with sugar. Common accompaniments are whipped cream or vanilla sauce. In addition to the sugar, one usually also stirs in some starch and sometimes even alcohol. Compote differs from “saftkräm” (a fruity cream soup), in that the compote has bigger pieces of fruit, and thus is not smooth. Eating “kompott” was common in Sweden until 1970, when the dish disappeared—that’s over 40 years ago; high time to bring it back!

• Winter compote
  A wintery compote with dried fruit, tea and glögg? Why not! It’s a way to get rid of the last remnants of Christmas, too. This recipe, from Göteborgsposten, yields four portions.

• 100 g dried apricots
  100 g dried figs
  100 g prunes
  100 g dried cranberries
  2 cinnamon sticks
  3 star aniseed
  4 cloves
  1¾ cups Earl Grey tea
  6 oz glögg
  2 Tablespoons Acacia honey

• Instruction:
  Cut the fruit in fairly big pieces. Put fruit, cranberries and spices in a bowl, pour over the tea and half of the glögg. Cover and let sit overnight. If you’re in a rush, you can forego this phase and instead let the concoction simmer a bit longer. The next day, pour everything in a pot and bring to a boil, add honey, lower the heat and let simmer for 10 minutes. Remove from stove and pour in the remaining glögg. Serve the compote warm or cold and make it extra festive by adding whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.