Saturday, June 30, 2007

Sauteed Vanilla Scented Apricots

Elise and I recently traded vanilla beans for some fresh apricots. Staring at the perfectly ripe, sun-like globes of sweet juicy goodness, I knew I had to combine them with some of the vanilla beans.

Even as I opened the apricots, their pits falling out effortlessly, their overpowering scent took over the kitchen and began to strongarm the vanilla for aromatic dominance. I realized that a simple saute would be the best way to incorporate the two dueling flavors.

The finished bring orange apricots, flecked with black pinpricks of vanilla, and shimmering with glazed sugar it's quite a dessert to present to your friends. Perfect on it's own or over waffles or ice cream, or maybe even a pie or tart filling, it's a heady and comforting dessert for summer.

Sauteed Vanilla Scented Apricots
What You'll Need...
6 apricots
3 tablespoons of brown sugar

1 or 2 vanilla beans (I used Madagascar variety beans)

1 1/2 tablespoons of butter


What You'll Do...

1) Wash the apricots. Remove the stones from the apricots, and cut into quarters.

2) Warm a saute or fry pan over medium heat and melt the butter. Split a vanilla bean in half and scrape out the seeds. Throw the apricots, brown sugar, vanilla seeds and pod into the butter and stir. It will create a lot of juice the longer you saute.

3) Warm over medium-low heat for about 8-12 minutes or until you have them at a firmness you prefer. I like mine halfway firm, Rob let his share go a while longer till it was more of a sauce.

Note: These are the vanilla beans I used to make the vanilla sugar, afterward, I washed them off and let them dry overnight. I then chopped them up for some vanilla chips if I want to add vanilla bean flavor to some milk or cream for baking later.

7 comments:

  1. Stop it with the vanilla posts, you're making me drool!

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  2. hey this looks good! If and when my peaches ripen, maybe i should try this as well.

    you know you can eat the meat inside the apricot pits, right? Similar to almonds but they could be a bit bitter, so be careful.

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  3. this looks delicious...BUT i am really surprised that you would cook such ripe peaches!

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  4. These apricots look amazingly delicious. You've been blessed, my friend! Vanilla beans and now apricots? Maybe you should play the lottery... ;-)

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  5. I saw apricots at the market last week for the first time. It has been several years (about 8 to be exact) since I last saw a fresh apricot and I was standing in front of this basket of fruit wondering why the peaches were so small this season and whether it was a particular cultivar before I wandered off to other things. It was only when I was halfway home that the penny dropped!

    Anyhow, now that they are in season here I think I want to give this a go.

    We only seem to get one type of vanilla pod here and that is whatever the health shop is selling on the day (and I suspect it is from Madagascar).

    I am very interested in the varieties of vanilla that you have been exploring, it never occured to me that there could be such variety.

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  6. I'm green with envy at the thought of fresh apricots -- here in the northeast, we're just starting into zucchini season. Stone fruits? Not yet. This looks delicious -- maybe with some vanilla ice cream???

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  7. oops! i meant apricot not peaches!

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~Garrett