Qubani ka meetha – essentially stewed dried apricots with some apricot kernel seeds added in and sweetened with a little sugar. One of those quintessentially Hyderabadi dishes/sweets. Apricots are truly celebrated in this dish. The recipe is a simple one and ensures that all flavors of apricots come through really well. Sweetness, tartness that is very typical of apricots, being able to bite into very well cooked apricot pieces that still hold their shape and occasionally surprised by the nuts.

I was never big on cooked fruit. Only once I moved to the West did I learn how warming and comforting cooked fruit actually is! Apples with cinnamon work great in even in oatmeal. Berry compote is incredible swirled into anything. Cooked and reduced pears can be used to make a great summer drink. And so on. It so happened that one day I had a lot of dried apricots on hand and came across this dessert just by chance. And we’ve been hooked ever since!

I changed a few things in the authentic recipe because of availability of ingredients. I could only find pitted and dried Turkish apricots, so I had to no kernels to break apart. I used badam/almonds instead. With that being said, let’s jump right into the recipe.

Ingredients

• Dried apricots – about 24-28
• Water – as needed
• Sugar – 3-4 tbsp or as needed
• Optional – 8-10 almonds

Serves – 4; Time taken – 25-30 mins + 4 hours soaking

Recipe

• Collect dried apricots in a bowl. Boil some water and pour it over the dried apricots and cover to let them soften. Takes about 4-5 hours for them to soften up well
• Once soft, remove the kernels from the apricots. If using deseeded apricots, skip this step.
• Chop up the apricots into smaller pieces if you like it to be of jammy consistency. I like big pieces, so I used them as is.
• Put the water used to soften the apricots in a sauce pan. Let it heat up and then add in the apricots

• On low to medium heat, let them cook. Then will begin to soften up further

• As the water begins to evaporate, add a couple of tablespoons of water at a time and continue to cook for about 20-25 mins.
• The fruit really softens up at this point. Check the taste and add in sugar as needed and cook for a couple more minutes for sugar to mix really well and any left over water to evaporate.
• Now add in chopped almonds or chopped seeds from apricot kernels to this and mix them in.
• And you are done!

We love to eat this warm/lukewarm and with vanilla ice cream. Even if you think sweet on sweet may overpower your senses, trust me. The warm cooked apricots go really well with cool vanilla ice cream. Else, you could use whipped cream with it. Or eating it just as is is equally awesome! Enjoy!

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