Apricot Dessert from Eastern Anatolia - Delicious Türkiye with Wolfgang Puck #2

Hello everyone. On this episode of Delicious Turkey, we are in the Eastern Anatolian region. I'm preparing world famous Turkish apricots stuffed with sweet cream. But before, let me tell you a little bit about this beautiful region first. Eastern Anatolia, the land of Noah's Ark. The legend says Noah's Ark landed on Mount Ararat a thousand years ago. Today, the local cook has a special dessert called Noah's Pudding to celebrate the survival of Noah. Let's not forget about man. The city is famous for its rich breakfast items, and it hosts the biggest lake of Turkey, where you can visit the world famous Akdamar Church. High mountains with snow on the top, a great destination for skiers. Great meadows covered with wildflowers, wonderful place for cows to graze. The city of Kars alone produces over 50 types of cheese, including the gruyere. Let's not forget the apricots. If you ever tried Turkish apricot, you know the difference. Now let's get back to my kitchen. I have a dish to prepare. Dried apricots are amazing from Eastern Anatolia. They make a dessert out of it. Very simple. They soak the apricots overnight, make a little syrup, and use some clotted cream and some pistachio from Antep. I mean, it doesn't get any better than that. Now, we soaked our apricots overnight so that way they rehydrate, and then we're going to make a syrup, okay? I'm going to pour in the soaking liquid in a pan, add a little sugar, okay? And then I'm going to add a little lemon juice for the balance. We're going to reduce our soaking liquid until it becomes syrupy. It takes a few minutes. All right. And here I have this wonderful Turkish clotted cream. I love it. Our liquid is reduced, and now I'm going to add the apricots to it and glaze them. All right, we rehydrate the apricots, but look how nice and glazed they are. So it's perfect. And then as soon as it's done, I'm going to take them out. And now I took them out of my pan. You see, beautifully glazed. I'm going to spread them, and we're going to cool them off because we could not put our cream on them right now. You see how beautiful they are? Perfectly glazed. So now we're going to cool them down, and then we're going to fill them with our clotted cream. But first, I'm also going to chop some pistachios. These are delicious pistachios from Entebbe. They are amazing. They use them a lot for their baklava, too. But also, it's perfect with our apricot from Eastern Anatolia. So not only do the pistachios give you a good flavor, but also they give it a little crunch. So that way, you have texture and flavor. The clotted cream is here, the pistachios are ready, and we are cooling off our apricots. All right, my pistachios are chopped here, the cream is ready, and my apricots are cooling off. So that way, I can soften with my clotted cream. All right, now these are not just any apricots. They come from Eastern Anatolia. They have the most flavor. But they are pretty big, so we dried them and then actually we put them in the water and soaked them overnight. So it's really a great apricot. So you can see I glazed them. So now you open the apricot just like that and fill it with the clotted cream. And then roll them into the pistachio. Okay, and here we are. You know, the best pistachio comes from Antep. And here we have it, our stuffed apricots with clotted cream, pistachios from Antep. We even served them at the Oscars. Now for me, I would need a Turkish coffee with it, and I would go to Turkish heaven. Where are we? In Eastern Anatolia. Look what they have. They have amazing cheeses, over 50 varieties. And one of my favorite is their gruyere. And to me, great cheese is so important. And having great fruit with it is even better. Look at that. Now I'm going to show you how I eat it. Okay, cut off the rind. Okay, now all I need is a glass of good Turkish wine and it will be perfect. Put it on a cheese plate here. You can put skewers in it, whatever you like. Oh, mm, perfect. A few of the apricots around, a few dried cherries around, and naturally walnuts. And then a little black pepper and a little olive oil from Izmir. And we are in good shape. Okay, a little olive oil on top of it, and maybe a little salt. Look at that. Great cheese from Kars. All we need, a good bottle of red wine, and we are in seventh heaven. Please watch the other episodes of Delicious Turkey and do not forget to subscribe to GoTurkey, YouTube account, and follow it on social media.