Figs, FT readers! I love them! My budget always breaks in the supermarket when I reach the fig aisle – oh some might go for the dried prunes inna bag, some might go for the dried APPLE inna bag (yuck!), but not for me! Sainsburys Organic Figs YUM YUM in my belly. Mouth-wateringly advertised as “partially rehydrated”, they are the IDEAL sweet snack for anyone craving a sugar hit straight from the bag on their own! And who CARES if they have an “effect”? That’s only if you eat the whole bag in go! Like what I do!! But since when was poo-ing a bad thing anyway???
However, my problem with FIGS is that, aside from scoffing straight from bag, I’m a bit SCARED to do anything else with them. And this is dried figs. Fresh figs PETRIFY me. I have read a GRILLION gourmets rhapsodising about the quivering freshness of figs straight from the tree and as such the one soggy looking ‘fresh’ fig in the supermarket (that I spotted ONCE, readers) lacked a certain appeal. John Ruskin had to go all the way to Assisi for his – writing, “Catherine brought me up as a great treat yesterday at dinner, ham… and a plate of raw figs, telling me I was to eat them together”!
“Figs and ham? That sounds nice”, I think, 132 years later. But will that also work with the driedpartially rehydrated fig merrily waiting for me in the fridge? Is it even worth attempting, or should one take a (fig)leaf out of Jane Grigson’s book and STEAM the fig first? It seems almost worth it, especially when one sees Tony Tobin’s Poached figs with port (for one) – HE KNOWS HIS AUDIENCE eh readers?? Me, I can see the fig going well with a Lancashire cheese on it’s own, or with bananas for a pudding (it occurs to me that perhaps I’m just thinking purple+yellow = YUM, argh Cadburys it is all your fault!!) – I just need to get over my fear of UTILISING THE FIG!
Thus, I plan to attempt:
Fig rolls
Fig compote; and, amazingly..
DEEP FRIED FIGS!
But where are the recipes for… FIGGY PUDDING?