Thursday, July 29, 2010

Apricots in Rose Wine



Most of the CSA fruits we get we eat raw and whole because we do a lot of that around here. But the apricots we got last week were a little sour even though they were perfectly ripe and soft. Thing 1 ate one the night I brought them home and made a funny scrunched up face that we all laughed at.

But what to do? I don't really like baking pies mid week, I have enough to do to make a decent dinner every night. But I wanted to do something, because I was the only one eating these things raw.

I have become a little obsessed with rose wine this summer. I love white in the summer, but I like to try new flavors. Rose is a big trend in New York right now with a lot of stores dedicating a display to them (including my Vines on Pine). But there aren't any yucky sickly sweet White Zins here. The roses I have been drinking have been delicate dry blends of sauvingnon blanc and grenache among others. The wine is mostly dry white, but the bit of red gives it some depth of flavor. It is really different but lovely. And the blush color is downright sexy, pink but ever so slightly orange like a sunset on a summer day with no humidity. Let's face it, most trends pass over me so I am kind of psyched to be among the ranks of those doing something considered cool before it becomes commonplace. I had never had Pinot Noir before I saw Sideways, for example. I cannot be counted on to be in the know.

Anyway-back to the apricots. I decided to boil them in wine and sugar as a topping to ice cream. There was so much juice that I had to boil the shape out of them to get the syrupy consistency I was looking for. If I had it to do over, I would boil down the wine and sugar into a syrupy first and then add the apricots so that I didn't have to kill them. Then they would retain their shape.

This was unexpectedly good. Very simple, but it had a very sophisticated flavor. A lovely and fitting end to a grilled meal of shrimp, striped bass and zucchinis.

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