A Good Appetite / An Apricot in Hand, an Overflowing Bowl / By MELISSA CLARK

August 6, 2008
A Good Appetite / An Apricot in Hand, an Overflowing Bowl / By MELISSA CLARK
WHEN it comes to fresh summer apricots, a fruit-obsessed friend and I have an ongoing debate.
She swears by cooking stone fruits to bring out their flavor: poaching them in sugar syrup, baking them into a tart crust, or nestling them under a nutty crumble.
I like my apricots ripe, raw and straight up, eaten over the sink to catch any nectar that dribbles too fast for me to lick off my hand.
Because of this divide, my friend has a stash of well-loved apricot recipes, while I have — well, a stash of apricots that I eat one after another as they soften.
But every few years, tempted by her effusive descriptions of elaborate creations filled with melting apricots, I break out of my happy rut and whip up a recipe or two.
While they are always good, the fruit condensed and rich from time spent exposed to heat, they’re never quite compelling enough for me to want to make more than once, especially when the effortless, over-the-sink option beckons.
This summer, though, with a harvest producing apricots so luscious, juicy and abundant, I decided it was time again to step away from the sink. Besides, I had an overflowing bowl of red-dappled fruit ripening all at once, and I needed to do something before all that quivering, fragrant flesh succumbed to the circling fruit flies.
So what to make?
Because I’ve yet to upgrade the faulty air-conditioner in the kitchen, baking was out of the question. This left me with poaching or sautéing on the stove top.
I thought of my friend and her syrup-poached apricots, and decided to give that method a try. I liked the idea of encouraging the juicy factor of the fruit, instead of evaporating all the sweet drippings in a hot skillet.
After poaching, my plan was to toss them with whatever rich dairy product I had in the fridge, which turned out to be Greek yogurt (though crème fraîche or sour cream could have also worked), and some toasted nuts for crunch.
My friend likes to poach her apricots with aromatics, like split vanilla beans or lemon verbena leaves, so I followed suit, adding a pinch of ground cinnamon and a few gratings of lemon zest to my apricots and sugar.
As I was about to pour in the water and set the mix to simmer, I paused to watch the apricot juices saturate the sugar and begin to break it down into syrup. If the apricots and sugar were already forming syrup on their own, without the aid of heat, why should I even bother turning on the stove? I knew that if I left the mixture alone the acids and moisture from the fruit would eventually dissolve the sugar crystals nearly as effectively as a flame. And by not adding water, the syrup would be thick and clingy instead of diluted.
I nibbled a piece of apricot after it had macerated for a few minutes. It was coated in syrup and deeply suffused with the flavors of cinnamon and lemon, which I combined because the Greek yogurt sparked a baklava fantasy, and my favorite version calls for those ingredients.
With baklava images lingering, I chose walnuts to layer in the bowl with my apricots and yogurt.
Sublimely syrupy as the apricots were, the yogurt was bracingly tart, almost too much so. My little creation needed a touch more sweetness to mellow out the tang.
The baklava connection made me reach for a jar of good Greek honey. A few sticky drips were all that was needed to pull everything together.
Juicy, creamy and crunchy, with golden veins of honey rippling through the yogurt and over the fruit and walnuts, this was one apricot recipe good enough to compete with raw fruit over the sink. And not much more difficult, either.



August 6, 2008
Recipe
Honey-Apricot Parfait With Greek Yogurt, Walnuts and Cinnamon
Time: 10 minutes
10 ounces apricots, pitted and cubed (about 2 cups)
1 to 2 tablespoons sugar, depending upon sweetness of apricots
1/4 teaspoon lemon zest, optional
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 cup Greek yogurt
Good honey, for drizzling
1/2 cup chopped toasted walnuts.
1. Toss apricots with sugar, lemon zest, if using, and cinnamon. Let rest for a few minutes to bring juices out in apricots.
2. Stir yogurt until creamy. Divide half of it between two bowls or parfait glasses. Drizzle with a little honey and sprinkle with nuts. Spoon apricots into each glass, saving a few cubes to garnish tops. Repeat layering of yogurt, honey and nuts, then garnish with reserved apricot cubes. Serve immediately.
Yield: 2 servings.