apricot puree

Food memories. *Sigh*
As I ate a bowl of yoghurt with a great dollop of apricot puree, I experienced one of those moments—like Anton Ego from the Pixar movie, when he has his first taste of the 'peasant dish' Ratatouille and was immediately transported back to his childhood.

Apricot puree is a very simple condiment my mother prepared for us, using dried apricots. We'd have it on ice cream, or in crepes. Mum combined the puree into bavarois or fools. Perhaps a 'snow' would be fun to try. 

I was trawling the shelves in our local eastern/Mediterranean market Sedaqhat, looking for pine nuts to use in a pesto. The pine nuts were still in their shells—too fiddly. As I was looking, I found some rolled dried apricots. I hadn't encountered these before, so I bought some to try. These have a much firmer and drier texture than the Turkish dried apricots, and not nearly as vivid an orange-color. These apricots are a product of Afghanistan.

I used the same technique as Mum, covering the apricots in water, bringing the water to a boil and then turning off the heat and letting the apricots soak until very soft. I blended the apricots with the soaking water until smooth, adding some more water as required to make a 'spoonable' texture. 

As apricot nectar is difficult to find in these parts of the US, I'll try making the puree a little more liquid and use it in the apricot ginger chicken recipe we loved as kids. 
I'd also like to try chunks of the apricots in a tagine.