Apricots in (almost) 2015

[montjoye]

With sincere thanks to 10B for netting efforts, hospitality and picking permission, I begin this year’s apricot notes. Usual picking date is in the first few days of Jan. So today, being tired and brainless, I went off to see how they looked. Seemed more approachable than frock cutting. To my surprise, a bunch were ready to pick. So, duh, I did. There are plenty more left on the tree that will come ripe in the next days.

This haul was ~11kg

Tonight, the really squishy ones went into brandy
~700g (17) apricots
Split kernels of 15
300g sugar
~600ml brandy (as much as would fit in the jar).

More cooking needs to happen tomorrow.



Jam - this is tomorrow :-)
3kg apricot flesh, cut in 8ths
{kernels from 1kg
{pits from 3 lemons
{rind of one lemon
above tied in cloth
juice of two lemons

very low heat until liquid and simmering
add 2.5kg sugar
rest 1hr

bring to boil
remove stone bag
boil 25min or to jam set, stirring to avoid sticking. I nearly let it burn!

I now have a dozen jars of apricot jam and some lightly scalded fingers. The boiling jam was spitty.

Differences to last years jam:
-a little more sugar but also more fruit as I weighed flesh without stones.
-more kernels(1/3 vs 1/4) and lemon pits(3 vs 2)
-slightly less ripe apricots
-boiled 10min longer
Ginfancier's meyer lemons again.



Sauce making can wait a day or so until the remaining apricots are a bit riper. They are under cloths with bananas and apples to help the ripening along.

Sauce (new year day)
2kg apricot flesh, cut in 8ths
juice one lemon
rind 1/2 lemon finely shredded
two sticks cassia, one cinnamon

slow heat to simmer
add 1kg sugar
rest half hour

bring to simmer
cook ~25min
apricots were not slumping as usual so I took out the cinnamon sticks and blitzed it.





and five bowls of fruit has been reduced to two. Hopefully rhubarb will be collected tomorrow for chutney making.

Friday 2nd Jan
Rhubarb collected from mrsbrown's dad's place. Ta muchly.

Best Chutney (my adaptation of an adapted version of a Sally Wise recipe)
1.5 kg apricots stones removed, then chopped (400g freezer stock, rest fresh)
700g Rhubarb, finely chopped
500ml cider vinegar
1 cup dark brown sugar
2 tablespoon ginger, finely grated
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon allspice
1 red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped
½ teaspoon cloves (lift out towards the end of cooking)
½ teaspoon nutmeg, freshly grated
2 teaspoon mustard seeds- partially ground in the mortar
½ tsp cardamom seeds- partially ground in the mortar



Now I'm down to only one large plate of apricots. These I will let ripen some more and then freeze for use in an apricot cider.