I'm not a fan of apricots-- I really want them to be peaches, and they taste woodier. My parents had a tree full of giant, lush apricots and were heading out of town, so we ended up with gallons of them. I'd heard of grilled peaches before, so I tried grilling apricots, with pretty good success. The grill softened out the woody texture and released deliciously sweet syrup. They went well on pancakes and toast, but there were just too many of them.
Later that week, we were craving curry. Keeping tiny cans of coconut milk on hand just to make a little curry can be a pain. I did some googling around (research is a strong word for that), and I found some suggestions that northern India doesn't have coconuts anyway. Instead they just make their curry with broth, or soaked nuts.
Nuts aren't exactly cheap, nor part of our regular diet, but the woodiness of the apricots got me thinking, and I decided to replace coconut milk and sugar in our standard curry recipes with lightly blended, grilled apricots.
You remember our
Duck curry in a Duck, right? We tried that recipe with blended apricots instead of coconut milk, and the weirdest thing happened. Our familiar curry tasted like tomato curry. No tomatoes were included (other than a splash of ketchup in the curry paste), yet our tongues were telling us we were eating tomato curry. Not the dinner we expected by any means.
Since we've had plenty of red curry off that batch of red paste, we thought it was time to go yellow. We adapted this recipe for a basic yellow chicken curry. It worked better with the creamed apricots than the red curry.
Yellow Curry Paste
- 4 large shallots
- 4 large heads of garlic (not individual cloves - FULL HEADS of garlic)
- 1 6-inch piece of fresh ginger
- 8 Thai chili peppers, but we just used 3 chilis from the garden
- 1½ tablespoons salt
- 2-3 tablespoons turmeric
- 2-3 tablespoons mild curry powder
- 2 teaspoons roasted ground coriander
- 1 stalk Lemongrass
- ¼ cup packed cilantro leaves and stems
Bake/grill the ginger, peppers, shallots and garlic in foil envelopes. Ginger and peppers for 15 minutes, shallots and garlic for 45. Then blend it all together in a food processor. If your food processor is weak sauce, like ours, you'll probably have more success dicing the Lemongrass and cilantro, and blending them first.
Makes about 2 cups, and freezes well for several batches of curry.
Yellow Apricot Pork Curry
- 2 cups potatoes, cut into bite-sized pieces
- 1 pound pork loin, or chicken cut into bite-sized pieces
- 1 yellow onion, diced
- 2 carrots sliced
- ⅓ cup yellow curry paste
- 2 cups apricot cream
- 2 cups potato water
- 1 Tbsp Better Than Boullion broth base
- 2 teaspoons fish sauce (optional)
- cilantro and rice for serving
Cut and cook the potatoes for 15 minutes in just enough water to cover while you prep the other ingredients. SAVE THE POTATO WATER to add some starch back to your curry. The hot water mixes well with the broth base.
Quickly fry up the meat then set aside. Fry the onions 3 minutes. Add the carrots and curry paste, stirring for another 3 minutes. When the curry paste has browned up and is releasing its wonderful aromas, add the remaining liquids. Bring to simmer and simmer for at least 10 minutes to meld.
Serve over rice.
