Short Week, Short Recipe
I came home to find a bag of fresh late-season figs sitting on the counter, and well, let’s just say homecomings don’t get much better than that. Figs, with their medium sweetness and juicy, slightly meaty texture can be eaten either savory or sweet, and are some of the pastry cook’s best friends. There’s precious little time left in the week, so this week’s recipe will have to be something simple, but simplicity is really the way to go with any fresh ingredient. Since figs and wine are a natural pairing, I think this might be a nice one:
Notice this recipe calls for dried figs, which is no problem, just don’t stew the figs as the recipe says. Fresh figs don’t need to be “plumped” in this way, they’ll just fall apart. You want to macerate them (actually the same thing as marinating, only in a sweet mixture) in the cooled, un-reduced wine/sugar mixture for a few hours or overnight. Remove the figs and boil the liquid down to a syrup as instructed. Let it cool and serve it over the figs with yogurt, goat cheese (sweetened or unsweetened), ice cream, whatever you like. This is an incredibly versatile preparation (I’ll probably eat it with calves’ liver tonight).