| Food & Drink - Wednesday, August 1, 2007
What can you do with all that fruit you couldn't resist? Five recipes
Roasted pork loin with apricots
Pork loin, about 3 pounds
Coarse sea salt
1/2 cup mustard with white wine
3/4 cup honey
2 small cloves garlic, chopped fine
Fresh rosemary, about 2 tsps., chopped
3 or 4 very ripe apricots
8 to 10 firm apricots
Rub the pork generously with coarse salt. Let stand for at least 30 minutes.
Mix mustard (a grainy mustard would work well also), honey, the pulp of the soft apricots, garlic and rosemary. Chill for about an hour. When chilled, smear most of mixture on the pork.
Shortly before glazing the pork, preheat oven to 475 degrees.
Put pork in a shallow ceramic baking dish or enamel-coated cast iron vessel, and place in oven for about 15 minutes. Meanwhile, wash apricots, cut them in half and remove pit. Coat with remaining mustard mixture. After removing pork from oven, lower oven temperature to 350 degrees. Splash a bit of white wine in the dish around the pork, then place apricot halves around the meat. Put pork back in, and test after about 25 minutes. When internal temperature reaches 135 degrees, remove from oven and loosely tent for about 10 minutes.
Serves 4-6
Arugula salad with grilled nectarines
Enough fresh arugula for four servings
Olive oil
Lemon juice
Chopped shallot, about two tsps.
3 large or 4 small, firm nectarines, pitted, and each cut into 8 slices
Walnut pieces
Crumbly goat or blue-veined cheese
Whisk three parts olive oil and one part lemon juice together, then mix in shallots. Toast walnut pieces in skillet, or use lightly sugared walnuts.
Lightly brush a grill or cast-iron grill pan with oil. When the grill is very hot, put nectarine slices on, turning after about two minutes. Remove from heat when fruit has softened a bit.
Dress the greens and divide into plates. Top with nectarine slices, and finish off with walnut pieces and crumbled cheese.
Apricot crumble
Recipe from Danna Breen
Apricots, enough to fill 1 to 2" deep in baking dish, halved and pitted
2 cups pecan pieces, roasted in oven for about 15 minutes
1 cup flour
1/3 cup light brown sugar
1 Tbsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 cup butter
Put fruit in baking dish. Mix pecans, flour, sugars, cinnamon and cold butter in processor or with a pastry cutter. Sprinkle mixture over fruit. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. Serve with vanilla ice cream.
Poetic Peach-Blackberry Pie
Here's poet Charlotte Muse's recipe for the pie she baked this year for a group of homeless men in the creek.
For the crust:
3 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour
1 tsp. salt
2 Tbsps. sugar
7 Tbsps. chilled shortening
10 Tbsps. cold, unsalted butter, cut into 1/4-inch pieces
10 Tbsps. ice water
For filling
Fresh blackberries and peaches, enough to fill a 9-inch pie
Lemon juice
3 Tbsps. cornstarch
1 to 1-1/2 cup sugar
Process flour, salt and sugar in food processor until combined. Add shortening and process until mixture has texture of coarse sand, about 10 seconds. Scatter butter pieces over flour mixture; cut butter into the flour until the mixture is pale yellow and resembles coarse crumbs, with butter bits no larger than small peas, about 10 one-second pulses. Turn mixture into bowl, then sprinkle ice water over it. With a rubber spatula, use a folding motion to mix. Press down on dough with broad side of spatula until dough sticks together, adding up to 2 tablespoons more water if the dough won't come together. Divide dough into two pieces, one slightly larger than the other. Wrap each in plastic and refrigerate at least one hour or up to two days before rolling. (Crust recipe from "The New Best Recipe" from editors of Cooks Illustrated.)
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Rinse fruit, peel and cut up peaches, squeeze some lemon juice over the peaches to keep them from turning brown, and combine fruit. Add cornstarch and sugar. Let mixture stand while you roll out the crust. Fill bottom crust, then make a lattice crust on top. Bake for 55-60 minutes.
Apricot chutney
Patricia Allen's recipe; she uses apricots from her own tree.
2 cups cider vinegar
3 cups sugar
4 cups (about 2 pounds) apricot, pitted and cut up
Currants, about 6 ounces
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 Tbsps. candied ginger, cut fine
Combine the vinegar and sugar in a pot and bring to a boil. Add remaining ingredients, and cook slowly for about 2 hours, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking. Spoon into hot, sterilized jars, leaving 1/4-inch headspace, and seal. You can process in a boiling bath for 10 minutes. Peaches can be substituted for apricots.
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