I have been making this winter fruit salad from the time I first started looking at cookbooks and well remember the original Claudia Roden recipe (in her wonderful classic A Book of Middle Eastern Food). My version, honed by experience and travel, is a little different. If you use water, you will probably need to add a bit of sugar; start with 1/2 cup and see how that tastes. This recipe produces a lovely syrup of its own, but you can serve it with yogurt or fresh or sour cream if you like. If you’re in a hurry, you may cook the mixture, gently, until the fruit softens. The texture will be mushier, the fruits less distinctive, but the taste will still be great.

Ingredients

　　2 pounds assorted dried fruits: apricots, pears, peaches, prunes, raisins, cherries, etc., in any combination

　　1/2 pound blanched almonds, halved or slivered, optional

　　2 tablespoons pine nuts

　　2 cups fresh orange juice, 1 cup grape juice plus 1 cup water, or all water

　　1 teaspoon ground cinnamon, 1 tablespoon rose water, 1 tablespoon orange-flower water, or 1 tablespoon anise liqueur, like raki, ouzo, or Pernod

Step 1

Step 2

　　The Best Recipes in the World by Mark Bittman. © 2005 by Mark Bittman. Published by Broadway Books. All Rights Reserved.MARK BITTMAN is the author of the blockbuster The Best Recipes in the World (Broadway, 2005) and the classic bestseller How to Cook Everything, which has sold more than one million copies. He is also the coauthor, with Jean-Georges Vongerichten, of Simple to Spectacular and Jean-Georges: Cooking at Home with a Four-Star Chef. Mr. Bittman is a prolific writer, makes frequent appearances on radio and television, and is the host of The Best Recipes in the World, a 13-part series on public television. He lives in New York and Connecticut.