Apricot Fest!

I’m a newbie to Japan, though I am Japanese. This country is still strange to me sometimes. And one of the things I don’t get is that the Japanese doesn’t   seem to like eating apricots. I will never forget the first time I bought Japanese apricots and ate one of them! SOUR!!! It was bitterly sour! I thought it would be a mistake, and continued to try one more. The same result. One more time, and still the same!

I concluded no wonder the Japanese doesn’t like to eat them. It tastes horrible. Wherever I lived, except on the tropical Indian Ocean island, I had wonderful apricots in the US, France, and South Korea. So, I searched, and realized in Japan, they do cook apricots in forms of jam, compote, and such, but they rarely eat raw apricots. However, on the internet, I found sweet apricots especially cultivated for eating raw from Nagano.

The season of apricots is only 2 weeks in Japan, so before people would know about the season arrived, all apricots would be finished. What a pity! Its tangy sweet acidity makes this fruit something special in summer! Besides, I heard the popularity of this magical fruit is dwindling in my home country. Quelle domage!

Anyway, I ordered 3kg of apricots in 2 varieties: one for eating freshly and the other one for cooking.

We made various compotes, a simple jam, cooked in tarts with pistachio cream, and so on with apricots. And we simply enjoyed eating raw apricots!

Apricot jam.  Spread out on a piece of  butter-melted pain de compagne. This jam is also good with a plain yogurt.

 

A cool composition of lemon, lavender and apricots. Do you know that cooking lavender flowers with freshly squeezed lemon juice makes the liquid turning into reddish purple color? It’s beautiful to take a look at it.

In this mesmerizing reddish lavender pool which is still warm, I add some honey to taste and then melt gelatin in. Then I put in a fridge to make gelée at the bottom.

I then make blueberry-apricot jelly on top putting apricot liqueur  and fruits. You just keep it really cool in the fridge and serve!

Apricots and lavender. Truly a French provincial style!

If you would like the tangy-sweet combination of blueberries and apricots, here is a tantalizing macaron parisien with blueberry butter cream and apricot whipped cream with the fruits.

And these are macarons parisiens with Earl Grey and apricot butter cream.

I put apricot compote at the max for the juicy summery flavor in lightly whipped butter cream.

And this is lavender-flavored apricot compote. The lavender is smartly subtle so that it doesn’t kill the zesty apricot flavor.

The taste!? It’s like floating in a dreamy apricot bath!