How to Unlock the Secret Flavor Hidden at the Apricot's Core
'Apricots are the most private fruit, loath to reveal their secrets. While other stone fruits grow tender on the surface as they ripen, apricots take an alternate path to maturity, softening from the inside out. I’ve given up on trying to tell whether they’re ripe by gently pressing on their skin, as I do with cherries, peaches and plums. I just rip one open at the seam, in search of juicy flesh that’s soft but not mealy.
For a few weeks each year, I make a game of tending to a small pile of Blenheim apricots, my favorite variety. I lay them on a platter in a single layer, turning and tasting one or more a day until they reach their two-day peak. Then, I perch myself over the kitchen sink, eating them one by one, reveling in their velvety flesh while sugary juice drips down my chin and elbows. Tart and sweet, tinged with the faint scent of almonds and flowers, the Blenheim is the ideal apricot for both eating and preserving.
The apricot’s fleetingly short harvest — only a few weeks long — explains the urge to save the season in a jar. But cooked fruit, no matter how expertly preserved, can never measure up to the flawlessness of its fresh counterpart. In adding sugar to sweeten and acid to balance what nature has already made perfect, we lose something indescribable. To be extraordinary, then, an apricot jam must offer something the fruit, out of hand, cannot.
The secret that apricots are most reluctant to divulge is that the most seductive flavor they have to offer is hidden within their pits.'>>>
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/27/magazine/secret-flavor-fruit-jam-apricot-noyau.html?
Apricot-Noyaux Jam
https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1019387-apricot-noyaux-jam