Dried Prune Compote

I HAD nearly forgotten a container of hard-as-rock dried prunes (about two cupfuls) that had been lying around for a while. They looked utterly useless at first but after staring at them for a whole minute inspiration struck.

And that's how I got down to making this dried prune compote.

First I let the dried prunes soak overnight in some scalding water. The following day the prunes had softened beautifully and doubled in size. It seemed like they had acquired a new life from their hopelessly dehydrated state. Then I pitted them, chopped them up roughly and put them in a heavy-bottomed saucepan to boil on slow heat along with the water in which they had soaked, a cupful of sugar and the juice of half a lemon. While it was cooking away, further inspiration struck...there was this bottle with some dregs of dark rum in it. Now I felt that a bottle with such measly contents did not merit so much of storage space, so in went the rum into the prune mixture and the empty bottle straight into my dry waste bin.

I cooked the mixture till it thickened a bit before taking it off the fire and letting it cool. And then I served some of it up as a topping to transform a plain old Amul vanilla ice-cream into a heavenly dessert and stored the rest in the refrigerator for use on another day.

PS: I sliced the block of ice-cream with a heated knife, which caused a mild sizzle and tiny bubbles to appear on the surface. I had to work doubly quick to click the picture, lest the ice-cream begin to melt and lose its shape, because unlike in the ice-cream ads, this was real ice-cream and not mashed potato dressed up to look like ice-cream!