Plum and Port Crostata

First, I saw this plum and port crostata on the very last page of the August issue of Living magazine, and then I spotted Italian prune plums in the grocery store. Little, egg-shaped, Italian prune plums seem to pack a full-sized plum’s amount of flavor into a smaller parcel. For this crostata, they were mixed with a reduced ruby port syrup, and that sounded like a such a good idea, I knew I’d like it just by reading about it. There are two slightly unusual things about this recipe. One is that one half of a seeded and minced Thai chile is an optional ingredient. That was intriguing to me, so I included it, but the flavor was lost in the port syrup. The plums and syrup were so lovely together I don’t think I’d bother with it next time I make this. The other interesting thing is that a pie dish is suggested for baking the crostata rather than letting it be more free-form on a baking sheet. I went ahead and used a dish in case the plums and syrup needed to be supported to prevent a runny mess, and that was probably the point. The syrup does set up by the end of the baking time, but there’s a fair amount of liquid as it starts to bake.

So, the dough was rolled and placed in a baking dish and left to chill while the syrup was made. Ruby port and brown sugar were heated in a saucepan and left to reduce to about a third of the original amount. Once cool, that reduced syrup was stirred into a bowl with the halved and pitted plums, more brown sugar, salt, cornstarch, and cinnamon. That mixture was placed in the pie shell, and the dough edges were turned inward and then brushed with cream and sprinkled with turbinado sugar. The crostata baked for two hours total which seemed like a very long time, but it worked out fine.

The once juicy filling was bubbly and thick when it emerged from the oven, and the house was filled with the incredible smell of baking plums. I was sure this was going to be delicious, and it did not disappoint. The port prevented the syrup from being too sweet, and it mixed with the flavor of the plums perfectly. Italian prune plums won’t be around for long, in fact, I didn’t see any at the grocery store yesterday. Next time they appear though, I’ll be ready to greet them with this recipe in hand.

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