Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Adelaide Plains Apricot Pie

The local Christmas went off without a hitch in my household, with family members variously delighted and inspired by the challenge of sourcing all the food from within a defined local area. One of the highlights of the day was also the simplest dish: Apricot & Nectarine Pie.

Ingredients
A couple of handfuls of apricots (these ones were sourced from the inner southern suburbs through the Urban Orchard)
3 or 4 nectarines (plucked fresh from a tree in my backyard)
honey (harvested in Aldinga, bought at the Adelaide Showgrounds Farmers Market)
whole wheat flour (grown and milled by Four Leaf, Tarlee; bought at Wilson's Organics)
olive oil (from Willunga, bought at the Adelaide Showgrounds Farmers Market)
almonds (grown by Willunga Almonds, bought at the Showgrounds Farmers Market)
water (piped from the Murray to you, or from your rainwater tank)
sheep's yogurt (the honey flavoured one from Kangaroo Island is particularly delectable)


Method
1. Chop apricots and place in a saucepan. With a little water and a couple of spoonfuls of honey (to taste), stew until they soften and begin to form a syrup paste. Remove from saucepan and put aside.
2. Combine 150 - 200g of flour with 1/4 cup of water and add a touch of olive oil. Mix using your hands, gradually adding olive oil until the bulk of the mixture clumps together, while still remaining dry and a little crumbly. Cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, slice your nectarines into thin slivers, add to a new saucepan and semi-stew to ensure they retain their shape, with a little water and honey to taste.
4. You might want to turn on your oven now - the oven I use is temperamental and not very efficient, so I put it up to 200 degrees.
4. Remove pastry from fridge and roll out with a little flour. Place rolled pastry into a baking dish, trimming the edges as necessary. Chill further if you like.
5. Place oven-proof weights (like a ceramic lid or plate) on the pastry base to ensure it stays flat, then place in the oven and bake blind from 20 minutes, or until dry and crispy. If you like, you could also take it out 15-20 minutes, brush on the white of one egg, and place it back in the oven for another 5 minutes or so if you want to seal the base in preparation for a particularly sloppy filling.
6. Pour stewed apricots into the base, and arrange semi-stewed nectarines on surface in an appropriately decorative pattern. Scatter almonds on surface for further aesthetic delight.
7. Bake the whole thing for 20-30 minutes, and serve with the Kangaroo Island sheep's yoghurt. 8. Victory!

2 comments:

Sheldon said...

Sounds pretty good. I had a few of many different varieties of stone fruit and made them into a salad this morning.

1: Peaches - from a tree in a friends backyard; fair trade for feeding her kitties for a few days
2: plums, white and yellow flesh and nectarines and peaches - from the ASFM.
3: strawberries that i cut and froze - from the ASFM.
4: cherries - from the ASFM
5: honey - from mclaren vale
6: lemon juice - from a lemon from a tree in the same back yard as the peaches on line 1
7: finely chopped mint leaves - from the backyard
8: finely chopped Stevia***** leaves

I'd suggest home made iceream, but i don't think we have the ingredients to do it.

***** who needs Qld sugar when you can get :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stevia

Unknown said...

This blog is wonderful and interesting, i really enjoyed reading!!! i must to say the apricot is delicious and contain many vitamin. That is why i prefer to eat it frequently. Actually when i bought my house through
costa rica homes for sale i didn´t see an apricot tree. Now i am really happy.