Servings: 2 · Prep: 10 minutes · Cook: 40 minutes · Total: 50 minutes (+ 2 hours chilling)
High summer, and the apricots are at their most generous. This is a parfait in name and gesture only, a spooned, layered thing, but it belongs to a quieter register than the sugared, whipped dessert the word usually promises. Its sweetness is faint, drawn entirely from ripe fruit and from an onion cooked long and slow until it turns honeyed. Folded through the apricot, that onion leaves a soft pungency behind, reminiscent of a good chutney, and it is this that gives the dish its complexity: savoury beneath the fruit, more interesting than sweet. It asks to be savoured slowly rather than devoured, and it rewards the more curious, sophisticated palate.
Layered over cool Greek-style soy yoghurt, it is proof that when sweetness comes from whole food, gently cooked, the body receives it as nourishment rather than a spike. A summer dessert that fits.
Ingredients
- 1 large onion, sliced into half moons
- 6 ripe apricots, stoned and sliced
- 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- Pinch of sea salt
- 200 g Greek-style soy yoghurt (Sojade), or any yoghurt of your choice
- Fresh mint leaves to serve (optional)
Method
- Warm the olive oil in a pan and cook the onion with the salt, low and slow, until soft and sweet.
- Add the apricots with a finger of water. Simmer very gently for 30 minutes until everything is tender.
- Blend until silky, then chill in the fridge.
- To serve, spoon the vanilla yoghurt into two glasses and layer the chilled apricot cream on top. Finish with mint if you like.
Yin–Yang balance
The long-cooked onion carries the warming, settling yang; the apricot, yoghurt and mint carry summer’s cooling yin. A chilled dish built on slow heat. Balance you can taste.
Nutrition facts (approx., per serving)
- Calories: 250 kcal
- Protein: 8 g
- Fat: 17 g
- Carbohydrates: 19 g (of which sugars 13 g, all naturally occurring)
- Fibre: 4 g
Rich in: beta carotene, potassium and gut-friendly fermented cultures
Notes & variations
The apricot purée keeps for three days in the fridge, so the parfait assembles in a minute when the sweet urge whispers. A pinch of ground fennel deepens the sweetness further. Peaches or nectarines work beautifully when apricots are past their best.