Ode to the Fig

Recipes seem to be one of the areas where people’s creativities, passion, and energies are alive and well on the internet. Figs were kind of reintroduced to my life last summer when we went to visit our friends Lindsay and Derek in Atlanta (shout out, Hi!) and Lindsay baked us this beautiful cake full of figs picked ripe from a laden tree in her yard. Simple and extremely yummy. it does seem like God gave it a hefty dose of succulence…so, what is the best way to enjoy this fruit? There are seemingly endless ways. I did want to highlight a new blog on this site, called A Mingling of Tastes. I loved her post on the fig.

Fresh Figs from A Mingling of Tastes food blog

Well worth checking out–she has excellent pictures and steps for each process. She has three recipes to make up her self described menage a trois:

• Fresh Figs
• Fig and Goat Cheese Tart
• Fig Pizza!

Now, I wanted to add my own recent experience. A little heat goes a long way to caramelize the insides and make something that could be a little dry become succulent and juicy. 🙂 I can also recommend making a potage with dried figs, using it with meat. For example, we made a thai massaman curry this week.

• 1 can of massaman curry from the Asian store, it came with potatoes
• Big chunks of chopped carrots
• Potatoes in the same size (if the curry mix doesn’t come with it)
• Dried figs cut in half
• Chicken thighs, skinless
• Simmer until cooked and serve over rice (we used brown basamati)

I am betting other vegetables like cauliflower or other dried fruit like apricots would work well in this too. I just let it simmer and simmer until the chicken was cooked and the carrots were tender. The flavors were highly complimentary. The potatoes soak up the heat of the curry which is helpful to our little tongues when eating. But the carrots and the figs add a sweetness. I was most pleased with the texture of the figs after cooking. I had dried figs which i had kept air tight for nearly a year! they were pretty dry and hard when i started. I managed to cut them. after steaming in the heat though, the insides were almost like a fig newton – dark, thick, sweet. Just a great play on flavors. So there you are, a wonderful job on fig from someone else’s blog and our own modest recipe at home this week. One note on the Massaman can of curry from the asian store though. it had a ton of oil. Much of it easily separated from the main mass of congealed spices which is the essence of the curry, so we ladled more than a half-cup out for our own sanity.

Price for this may take some figuring out. I made about 5 servings, not counting the rice. I think its probably under $2 a serving but will do the math and post it when I do!