photo courtesy freshplaza.com and Stemlitz
photo courtesy Frog Hollow Farm
Today I guess I won’t be working or wandering in the gardens outside, near or far. It’s raining here. For now, it seems like a good day for wandering elsewhere – into the world of the apricot.
We are sailing right along into the wonderful world of the stone fruit season right about now – well sort of. The first cherries have arrived here on the east coast from the west coast. I had some sweet and juicy samples from Washington this week.
For local fruits, we wait many weeks longer. In the stone fruit season, the large production feature obviously goes to peaches, which of course, I adore. They have a longer season, many great varieties and tend to flood the market along with plums and nectarines in late Summer. Even though I run out often and hoard the most beautiful and fragrant of white and yellow-fleshed peaches, always having a large group on my counter ripening up to perfection, it is the more elusive apricot that remains as perhaps a more secretive desire. Perhaps the apricot’s flavor can be described as slightly to more ethereal than that of the peach. There is a softer, more exotic perfume here that is unmatched elsewhere. In the past, fresh apricots in these locales always tended toward the hard and tasteless as they had been picked weeks before in a vastly unripe condition for shipping and shelf life. Not inspiring.
I grew up eating apricots out of a can (or tin as they say in the UK) in some variety of sugary syrup. It was there that I first got an inkling for what lay behind that juicy bath. Sometimes you could actually “get” the real essence of the fruit. Later on, I began rinsing the syrup off………
My Mom was a great fruit eater. She loved all fruits both fresh and dried. I used to look at her out of the corner of my eye when she enjoyed a dried fig, a prune or a date. I wondered from afar about this odd habit. Mine was a penchant and palate for the obvious – fresh-picked strawberries, rhubarb hijacked from our back neighbor Mrs. Simroe’s garden, cherries, peaches, blueberries the occasional nectarine, plums, apples, pears, melons – all fresh – well, you get the picture. (Eating string beans straight from my Dad’s garden was always something to look forward to.)
I don’t know how or when I ate my first fresh apricot of any great wonder. But, I knew out there that there were some fresh-picked ones that were worth their weight in gold. I’ve done my research in the world of apricot growing. I know that among the very best are grown in Austria (wachauermarille), France, Italy and California. Washington State weighs in here as well. Spain and Germany round out production in the EU. And, Turkey produces 70% of the world’s dried apricots. And yet, at this “ripe old age”, I don’t think I can say I have had a perfectly great fresh apricot. This is on my bucket list as I plan my traipsing around the world on the ever-lengthening “in search of” list……….
A few weeks ago Manuela Darling Gansser posted these pics and I could not get them out of my mind. If you’ve never seen her books, blog and otherwise, please take a gander. She is one of my favorite food people ever and I return to her books for indulgence and inspiration over and over.
courtesy Manuela Darling Gansser
Now and again I see many of my baker friends whipping up a stellar-looking apricot tart. Show me a pastry chef who doesn’t covet apricots! My mouth begins to water and I more often than not tend to sulk at the lack of availability of stellar specimens. I often fire off a note asking where they are getting them as they tend to appear at times of the year when there are no stone fruits in my vicinity.
Well, suffice it to say, I intend to visit all those stellar places where they are the very best before I go to my grave. And, I’ll have my fill of fresh-eaten and bake up a storm. You’ll note that I am not alone here:
photo courtesy Chewing and Michael Pollan
photo courtesy Francois’ Huntington WV
Well, today seems like a good day for looking around for some great recipes and samples of pastries with apricots. Long a favored muse of the best pastry chefs, the apricot has confirmed its place as being worth its weight in gold.
Here is just a short list of recipes to consider:
Jacques Torres: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/warm-apricot-tart-recipe.html
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/verlets-apricot-tart-101800
http://www.marthastewart.com/1132844/mini-apricot-tartes-tatin
http://chewing.xyz/post/139426297457/this-gorgeous-apricot-tart-was-just-one-of-the
from Simply Gluten Free
http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/apricot-ginger-frangipane-tart
http://www.bigoven.com/recipe/michel-richards-egg-pastryor-apricot-pastry/178350
http://www.davidlebovitz.com/2014/07/apricot-and-cherry-tart-recipe-with-marzipan-topping/
http://leitesculinaria.com/96553/recipes-apricot-tart.html
Pascale Beale has a beauty in her new book, “Les Fruits” – an Apricot and Frangipane Tart – page 42. This is a great book to buy right now! You can start with her Summer recipes and cook and bake your way through the rest of the year with her. She has a great article in the latest Edible Santa Barbara as well!
Well, I am off today to search around New York to see if I can indeed find any prize specimens in the apricot department.
Last week at the Mozzarella Class at Murray’s Cheese I attended with my daughter, we had some delicious dried apricots on the tasting board. I’ll be stopping there as well as at Eataly. I guess I’ll pretend I’m at the Santa Monica or Santa Barbara Farmer’s Markets…….
But before I “go” I had the urge to bake something. I haven’t baked much in a few weeks and I miss it terribly. Of course, I had no fresh apricots so I thought I’d manage with some “tinned”. None in the pantry. So, I resorted to dried. Making these scones just barely quenched my thirst. Perhaps I’ll get really lucky somewhere. I’ll be in California in late July and early August and I plan to devour everything in site.
APRICOT, LEMON AND GINGER SCONES –
3 cups all purpose organic flour
1 tblsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3 tblsp sugar
1 tblsp grated fresh ginger
zest of one large lemon
8 tblsp unsalted butter, cold, cut into cubes
2 eggs
3/4 cup buttermilk
1/2 tsp almond extract
1 cup re-hydrated dried turkish apricots (soak in slightly cooled boiling water for 5-10 min or amaretto if you’d like) and sliced into slivers (4-5 per piece) or, if you are lucky use fresh – peeled and chopped
egg wash
muscavado sugar for sprinkling
compound apricot sweet butter, if desired
Preheat oven to 425F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
In the bowl of your food processor, whir together the flour, baking powder, salt, sugar, lemon zest and ginger. Add the cubed butter and pulse 8-9 times until the butter resembles small peas. Dump this mixture into a low wide bowl.
In a large measuring cup, whisk together the eggs, buttermilk and almond extract. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients. Pour the wet ingredients into the well. Working with a dough scraper, gently mix the dry ingredients into the wet just until it begins to hold together. Add the slivered apricots and mix gently in. Finish with a very light-handed knead with your hands. Move dough to a lightly floured surface and roll to a 10″ rectangle. Roll up into a log beginning from the long edge. Cut into 8-9 scones. Lightly form each scone into a round and snip the top with kitchen shears around the edge, 4-5 times. Place on the prepared baking sheet. Brush with egg wash and sprinkle with muscavado sugar. Bake for 20 minutes or until nicely browned. Enjoy with sweet cream butter or the compound butter.
P.S. try these as well – https://kitchen-inspirational.com/tag/fontina-chive-scones-with-pancetta-and-apricot-jam/
I’m off now! Will keep you posted! By the way, today at 5:30 pm Robert Reich is doing a live interview with Alice Waters! Tune in! I can’t wait. I LOVE Alice! My hero!
P.S. Later that day:
Here are the fruits of my search today – dried Blenheim Apricots from Murray’s Cheese and fresh organic Apricots from Frog Hollow Farm found at Eataly. It’s so ironic that they carried Frog Hollow – I’m a huge fan of theirs and I didn’t know I’d find them in New York when I wrote this post this morning! Meant to be!
small but beautiful – tomorrow will be the test!
