Poached apricots with ricotta
Angela Hartnett says: "We used to serve this at my Lime Wood restaurant, where it was always very popular. We’d whip up a load of ricotta with mascarpone, icing sugar and vanilla, then cover it with delicious poached fruits and top with nuts. It’s very Italian and wonderfully simple, and shouldn’t be overly sweet – which is why I like it. You could use any poached stone fruits, such as pears or peaches, but my preference is for apricots.
Recipe and text adapted from The Weekend Cook by Angela Hartnett.
- Serves4
- CourseDessert
- Prepare10 mins
- Cook15 mins
- Total time25 mins
Ingredients
- 175g caster sugar
- 1 clove
- 1 star anise
- ½ vanilla pod, split lengthways, seeds scraped out
- 12 apricots, halved
- 300g ricotta
- 100g mascarpone
- 100g icing sugar
- 25g pistachios, roughly chopped
Method
Pour 400ml water into a large pan and place it over a medium heat. Add the sugar and whole spices, including the scraped vanilla pod (reserve the seeds). Bring the liquid to the boil, then reduce the heat to low and simmer to dissolve the sugar. Add the apricots and leave them to poach for 10 minutes, until soft. Turn off the heat and allow the fruit to cool in the syrup.
Tip the ricotta into a bowl and beat it together with the mascarpone, icing sugar and vanilla seeds. To serve, place spoonfuls of the ricotta mixture onto each serving plate and top with equal amounts of the apricots. Spoon over some of the syrup and finish with the chopped pistachios.
Nutritional
Typical values per serving when made using specific products in recipe
Energy | 2,401kJ/ 572kcals |
|---|---|
Fat | 23g |
Saturated Fat | 13g |
Carbohydrates | 80g |
Sugars | 79g |
Fibre | 2.3g |
Protein | 10g |
Salt | 0.3g |