apricots are one of the few fruits i actually prefer dried over fresh. i just found that out this week. we've been getting apricots in our farm box lately, and while i appreciate their rich, tangy flavor, i actually find myself wishing for the chewiness of dehydrated fruit rather than the kind of mealy fleshy fruits themselves. sorry apricots, your texture gives me the creeps.
thankfully, aryn owns a dehydrator, which i was able to borrow last night after our dinner party celebrating the end of school (oakland public schools, that is).
dehydrating apricots is a nice sunday morning activity. the process goes like this:
juice a lemon or lime and add about a quarter cup of the juice to one cup of water. this is your dipping bath for the apricots to prevent oxidation (browning when exposed to air). cut your apricots in half - they come with a convenient guiding cleavage down the one side which makes this process even easier. remove the pit. you can chop them up smaller at this point, but i prefer a good mouthful of apricot, so i left them in halves.
grab each half and pop it inside out, meaning give the skin side a good poke with your thumb. this is called "popping the back" and i guess it helps it dry more evenly. my halves ended up more flattened than inside out, but i can see how that would be helpful. let them soak in the citrus bath for about 5 minutes, and lay them out on your dehydrating racks. if you don't have a dehydrator to borrow you can theoretically dry your apricots in the oven - if your oven gives you the option to go as low as 120-150 degrees fahrenheit, or even in a sunny window if you happen to live somewhere particularly hot and not humid.
from what i've gathered online, if you're using the dehydrator you'll want to set it between 120-140 degrees fahrenheit. you can start it out on the high temperature end, for an hour or so and then turn it down for the remaining time (somewhere between 12-48 hours). you'll be able to tell they're done when they are leathery with no pockets of moisture, and if you tear them in half and see moisture beads along your tear line you'll know you need more time.
for now, the dehydrator is pumping out a soothing hum of hot air and apricot smell into my kitchen and i'm enjoying it immenseley.
5 comments:
what's not to love about convenient guiding cleavage??
Kasha, this is genius--we have a loaded-down loquat tree outside our window and we used this tutorial last night to transform the bounty into dried loquats. Mmm, tart and chewy...
I have to try this. The store bought ones are loaded with sulphites...a bad thing for me. While brousing your blog, i came across your dragonfly paper piecing..August 2008..Could I get a copy of the pattern from you? They are gorgeous!!! Thanks
dee (dlruger@msn.com)
I grew up on dried apricots every summer at my grand parents house. Buckets of them kept me chewing for weeks... and now as an adult I must admit they are my worst vice.
Nothing came close to grandma's apricots until I found the ones from Trader Joes (non-sulfured) and now I can enjoy a bit of summer past whenever I want.
Someday I will get a dehydrator so I can make beef jerky, dried apricots and fruit leather. Something about dried tough treats appeals to me instead of fresh foods.
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