Made this tomato & peach leaf soup with potato puffs and chive flowers, with a few tablespoons of peach water (fresh peach leaves made into #peachleafwater) and the chive flowers thanks to Ping @lost.emperor. The soup is a riff on two recipes: an old #ParisKentucky USA tomato ketchup recipe from “Housekeeping in the Bluegrass” 1875, and a dessert-style potato fritter recipe by Mary Eaton in Suffolk England, writing in her Cook & Housekeeper’s Dictionary in 1823. The leaves, to me, when fresh have no particular aroma, or even a flavour when you chew them. But place them in a pot and simmer gently and suddenly this rich almond aroma billows out of the pot. Extraordinary. I do think this might be one of Heinz’s secret ingredients both for sauce and soup. You can just add a few drops of almond extract in place of the peach leaf water.
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Now, a warning: the aroma and flavour from the leaves is caused by amygdalin, and this is classed as a cyanogenic glycoside: as wikipedia notes “Eating amygdalin will cause it to release cyanide in the human body, and may lead to cyanide poisoning”. So, if you were to eat even 2 large raw peach (or apricot) kernels, or lots of raw leaves, you would be expected to get some cyanide in your bloodstream. But cooking and water processing causes a substantial reduction of non‐glycosidic cyanogen after 5 minutes of cooking, but after 30 minutes of cooking some cyanogen remain. So there is some risk in consuming the leaf water, though probably less risky than eating a amaretti cookie (that contains apricot kernels).
Tomato Soup recipe: boil 250g chopped onion, 3 fat cloves garlic 120g water, 30g olive oil, 1 tsp salt w lid-on till soft, then remove lid & evaporate water till sizzling. Add one 400g tin of tomatoes + 20g tomato paste, bring to boil then puree till smooth. Add 1 tsp ground black pepper, 1/2 tsp cayenne, 1/8 tsp ground cloves, 1/2 tsp ground allspice and 1 tsp powdered english mustard. Bring to boil, add a few tablespoons peach leaf water (or a few drops almond extract) or enough so it taste good to you, simmer a few minutes adjusting salt and water, then serve.
