20071209

bring me some figgysomething.

figs

okay, now that i've got the figs, what do i do with them? i've looked at a bunch of figgy pudding recipes but they all seem to call for dried figs. does anyone have a nice recipe for fresh ones (pudding or otherwise)?

15 comments:

Oh to be overwhelmed by figgyness :)

My favorite way of eating them, aside from just fresh, is to halve them, coat them with sugar on the cut side, and take a butane torch to it, carmelizng the sugar into a nice crunchy sugar crust.

Fig brulee as it were. Eat with a sharp cheese or something spicy.

Fig flavor also does exceedingly well when roasted/grilled.

Fig jam via a nice and simple recipe: http://www.creativehomemaking.com/articles/012601b.shtml

-Tableau Vivante

I saw the title of this post in my reader and thought for sure you'd come up with some figgy treat... guess I'll have to wait a little longer :) I looked and found that fig jam is made with fresh figs, but perhaps your tree isn't quite up to that challenge yet (the recipe I found called for six quarts).

Fig & Goat's Cheese Clafoutis, from Melissa (Traveler's Lunchbox) - awesome, and interesting to use figs in something slightly savory. That's a suggestion for ya...

just came across this fig ice cream which calls for both dried and fresh figs.

So beautiful! My grandma had a fig tree and loved them, but I've only had them dried.

Not a big fan of fig.. sorry .. santos..!

cut the figs in half and wrap them in prosciutto. drizzle some balsamic on them and grill them over a hot fire. the fig gets all jammy and sweet, and the prosciutto gets crsipy... oh god it's good.

Brilliant photo Santos.

I love figs! If they are really delicious and you don't want to mask the flavour with anything else, they are really good simply poached in water with perhaps a little vanilla pod, orange rind or cinnamon stick (but take it easy with the flavourings so as not to overpower) and a little bit of sugar to help make a delicious juice. Then you can keep or freeze the poached figs as they do go off very quickly if kept when fresh. Lovely with perhaps a little crumbly almond biscuit or some icecream...

hello tableau vivante--not quite overwhelmed yet. but soon, hopefully! the fig brulee sounds amazing, i'll wait to try that when there are better cheeses in the market here. thanks!

hi cathy (laughing) more like six figs right now. i'll have to pass on the fig jam recipe until we get an orchard full of fruit.

zarah, melissa's recipe sounds great, thank you!

cathy, wow, i might just have to try that one, thanks!

acornbud, was the tree in hawaii? i want to say dried figs taste so different from fresh ones, but really they don't. it's just a lot more concentrated flavour.

hi mamabok, that's okay :)

tom, that sounds insanely good, i will definitely try grilling them. thanks!

barbara, thank you and happy holidays to you!

miss loftus, hello! happy holidays to you. i do like the simplicity of poaching them, that just might be the winner for this batch as i've got some beautiful vanilla beans i'd like to use. thank you!

i am with tom on pairing it with proscioutto, grilled or not. the contrasting sweet and salty does major tango on the tongue!

r. pasión, i'm definitely trying these grilled. apparently the fruit from the first year of harvest of a fig tree isn't as good as the coming years (but these are okay), so i'm hoping the heat will release a little more flavour from them.

I've never tried figs, I think. Can you eat it on its own? The only figs I've tried are Fig Newtons! =/

Hi Santos,
Yes my grandmas' tree was in Hawaii, in Paia,Maui to be exact. BTW, ,u dried starfruit ranged from cripy for the very thin slices to more chewy. Chewy was the preferred texture.

update on the grilling - i left out some details. best if you *brush the wrapped figs in olive oil*, grill them *on skewers* until the prosciutto is crispy, then dribble some balsamic on them and gobble away.

poached with vanilla sounds amazing, hl.