A ripe apricot, all sunburned cheeks, sweet nectar and rust-brown freckles, is a rare find. Which, of course, makes them all the more precious. Once in your hand, you can sneak off to a quiet place to rub your fingers over the skin, to lick lips and suck stones, or better still, to pass the bag around among your nearest and dearest. But so perfect a fruit is the exception rather than the rule.
Still, we can always rescue an underwhelming apricot with the application of a little warmth. By which I mean an oven rather than a sunny windowsill. Whatever your past experience with this fruit has been, I encourage you to give them another go. Don’t give up on the hard, disappointing ones that promised so much in the shop. Give them time in the company of sugar or honey or maple syrup. Tuck them in under a pie crust or hide them in a crumble. Singe their edges in a frangipane tart or bubble them down into a loose-textured jam. Warmth and sugar will make even the meanest little apricot surrender their all.
Apricots bring a touch of acidity to a lamb tagine (and to the sweetness of prunes, with which they are so often partnered), a casserole of duck or a stuffed pork escalope. Earlier in the week I placed a handful around a roast loin of pork with onions and aubergines. The snap of tartness was welcome with the sweetness of the pork and glossy brown onions in the same way apple sauce is, and the juices of the collapsing fruit soaked their way into the aubergine.
It is the slight acidity that gives the apricot the edge over a peach in the kitchen. Peach pie is invariably too sweet. An apricot pie is the stuff of dreams, especially under a sugar-dusted crust of soft, almost shortcake-like pastry.
Once you accept that it is the shopper rather than the shop that must bring the fruit to perfect ripeness, and that the most lacklustre specimen can be made to shine (even the most stubborn will submit after a day or two in a paper bag in the airing cupboard), the apricot becomes less of a challenge and much, much more a thing of joy.
Roast pork with apricots and aubergine
I suggest you ask the butcher to bone and roll the pork loin. It needs to weigh 1.5kg after boning. There will be plenty for 6 (in which case use 12 apricots). I usually roast a piece this size for 4, leaving plenty for sandwiches tomorrow (with salt and pickled cabbage or kimchee.)
Serves 4-6 (with leftovers)
onions 4, medium
aubergine 1, large
olive oil 4 tbsp
pork loin 1.5kg, boned and rolled
apricots 8-12
rosemary 6 sprigs
Set the oven at 220C/gas mark 8.
Peel the onions and cut them into quarters. Slice the aubergine into rounds 2cm thick. Put the onions and aubergine into a roasting tin, season with salt and black pepper and pour over the olive oil. Lay the pork on top of the vegetables, rub the fat with salt then place in the oven.
Let the pork roast for 25 minutes, then lower the temperature to 180C/gas mark 4 and quickly add the apricots and rosemary. Continue roasting for 70 minutes then remove from the oven, cover loosely with kitchen foil and leave in a warm place for 20 minutes. (I know this sounds a long time, but trust me, the meat will be all the more juicy for it.)
Remove the meat from the tin and carve into thin slices then serve with the roasted onions and aubergine.
Apricot and almond tart
Made in the style of a tarte tatin, but with apricots, which I prefer to the traditional apple, their slight tartness being most welcome among the blisteringly hot caramel and pastry.
caster sugar 100g
Marsala (sweet) 3 tbsp
butter 60g
apricots 500g (about 10)
almonds 20, whole, skinned
puff pastry 150g
cardamom 8 pods
icing sugar 3 tbsp
double cream 100ml
yogurt 100ml
flaked almonds 25g
Set the oven at 200C/gas mark 6. Put the sugar and Marsala in a 21cm tatin dish (or frying pan with a metal handle) and warm over a moderate heat until the sugar has dissolved. Continue cooking until the mixture starts to caramelise, thickening to a syrup and turning walnut brown. Cut the butter into small cubes and add to the pan, removing it from the heat as soon as the butter has melted.
Halve and stone the apricots, tuck an almond in the hollow of each, then place them, snugly and cut side down, into the caramel. Roll the pastry out then, using a bowl or tart tin base as a template, cut a disc of pastry 23cm in diameter. Lower the pastry into place on top of the fruit, tucking the edges in as you go.
Bake the tart for 20-25 minutes until the pastry has risen and the fruit is tender. Leave to rest before turning out upside down. (Take great care with this, as the caramel will still be hot.)
To make the cream, crack the cardamom pods, extract the dark brown seeds, and grind them to a fine powder with the icing sugar using a spice mill or coffee grinder. Pour the cream into a chilled mixing bowl and beat until soft and thick (stop well before it is thick enough to stand in peaks). Fold the yogurt into the cream, followed by the cardamom sugar. Scatter with flaked almonds and serve with the tart.
Email Nigel at nigel.slater@observer.co.uk or follow him on Twitter @NigelSlater
