I’m generally not a fan of fruit in savoury dishes. No apple with my goat’s cheese salad, no grapes with my fish, and certainly no watermelon with my feta. However, all my prejudice about fruit in my food (I’m apparently a poet today) disappeared when I tasted these cheesy toasts at a wine tasting evening a few months back. The combination of fennel, peach, caraway seeds and oozing cheese, combined with a Gewürztraminer, was enough for me to toss out all preconceptions. The person who made this dish was kind enough to point me in the right direction for the recipe, and last Saturday I made them myself. Unbelievable. Seriously. Go out to your cheesemonger tomorrow and make.this.dish. You won’t be sorry!

The original recipe, from the Dutch version of Delicious! Magazine, used Ossau-Iraty cheese, a semi-hard cheese from the French Northern-Basque country. It can be hard to obtain, so I substituted it with Reblochon, as did the person who made this for the wine evening. I think you could also use Gruyere, Fontina, Brie or Munster cheese. Any mild cheese will probably work, and it can’t hurt to experiment!

The chutney also requires caraway seeds, pictured above. These seeds have a mild aniseed-like flavour, which perfectly complements the fennel. Don’t omit these, as they are essential for the final product!

You’ll need:

- 1 French baguette, sliced thickly

- 300 grams of tinned peaches (you can reserve some of the liquid to use in the chutney)

- 150 grams of fennel, cleaned and stalks/leaves removed

- 2 teaspoons of caraway seeds

- 1 tablespoon of brown sugar

- salt, peper and lemon juice, to taste

- 1 Reblochon cheese (I think it weighed about 300 grams, but you’ll probably use half of that. You can use the leftover cheese to melt over your roast potatoes, to name just one delicious recipe)

Chop the peach and fennel in equal cubes. Heat some olive oil in a saucepan and add the fennel and peach, together with the sugar and caraway seeds. I added about three tablespoons of peach liquid to the chutney as well.  On medium heat, let the chutney simmer for an hour or so. When it has a chutney-like, thick consistency, turn off the heat and let it cool slightly. Add a little lemon juice and season with salt and pepper, to taste. Turn on the grill of your oven (if you don’t have a grill, don’t worry: you can also heat the oven to 225 degrees. That should do the trick as well). Put the baguette slices in a ovenproof dish and toast them under the grill, until they are a nice golden brown. Remove from the oven, turn around and top with the cheese of your choice. Put back under the grill for another few minutes, until the cheese is all runny. Take the dish from the oven, top the slices with a few heaped teaspoons of the chutney, and enjoy. Preferably with a nice glass of Gewürztraminer.