Favorites: Apricots

Summer brings a glorious bounty of fresh fruit. I thoroughly enjoy all of them, but I have a particular affinity for stone fruit, or drupes. Perhaps their scarcity in the colder months increases their cachet. Canadian winters, after all, are longer than all other seasons combined. White peaches appeal to me, with their soft perfume, sensual textures and delicate sweetness -- it's no accident that many writers make lusty associations with that fruit. The same goes for cherries, mangoes, nectarines and plums.

Hence, I am not saying that I enjoy apricots more than all of those fruits. But from a cooking standpoint, I think the apricot offers a versatility that I don't think is matched by its peers within the same genus of plants. Apart from tarts, jams and other typical applications of fruit, the apricot gets used in complex mains such as soups, stews and stuffed meats (the Sweet and Sour Stuffed Chicken recipe, for example). And it seems to cross multiple cultural boundaries, turning up in cuisines ranging from Finnish to Persian.

Apricots transform beautifully in the oven or on the grill. Some of its tartness goes away. The sight of its caramelized edges and dripping juices makes me salivate.

I recently put apricot halves under the broiler (I know, I know, I need to get with the program and get me a badass BBQ grill). I glazed the fruit with some gorgeous white wine jelly that a friend recently gave me. Any other light-colored jam, jelly or marmalade would have worked just as well. While still warm, I piled some of those glazed, roasted apricots over a bowl of good quality vanilla ice cream. Like a hot fudge sundae, it was ok, if not desirable, to have some of the ice cream melt from the heat of the toppings. Yum.

My ultimate goal for cooking with apricots is to find or invent the ultimate recipe for the pastry you see on the left. Au Pain Doré calls it the Abricotine, likely named after the Swiss apricot liqueur of the same name. Not long ago, I found another version of it in a kosher grocery. It is probably my most favorite dessert pastry in the world. The beauty of it is in the pristine presentation of the apricot halves -- shiny with glaze, made to look like raw egg yolks. There is an eggy custard at the bottom. The pastry needs to be light and flaky. A lot of mediocre bakeries allow them to get soggy from the fillings, which is a big no-no. If you have a great recipe for it, please share!