Fig Dishes

I spent the whole day cooking, but it had nothing to do with dinner. Jim was in a Men’s golf outing today and they had a huge not good for you lunch. He had a beef and cheese hoagie, a large ham sandwich, potato salad, chips and 2 beers. I asked about vegtables; none!  Something about the new chef and vegtables.  At out Ladies outing vegtables were considered a garnish.  We had leftovers from last night’s dinner. I was working on my figs. I think I mentioned that my friend Hailey has a fig tree. I love figs. I ended with our favorite from last year and made a double batch. These freeze well.
Fresh Fig Cookies
1 C white sugar
½ C shortening (I use half butter and half Crisco)
1 egg
2 C all-purpose flour
1 t baking soda
1 t baking powder
12 t salt
½ t ground cloves
1 cup chopped fresh figs
½ C chopped walnuts
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Cream sugar and shortening and add beaten egg.
3. Sift dry ingredients and blend with creamed mixture. Fold in figs and nuts.
4. Drop by 1” ice cream scoopfuls on greased sheet. Bake 15-20 minutes.
Spiced Figs
The Silver Spoon is a cookbook given to me by my Italian friend Mike. He loves this cookbook. It also got good reviews. I find it very hard to follow and I think it has translation problems. But, Italians love figs as much as I do and there is where you will find a lot of fig recipes. Right now these are in the refrigerator, but maybe tomorrow I will can these for use on ice cream this winter.
½ t ground cinnamon
½ t ground coriander
2 cloves
½ t ground ginger
½ C superfine sugar
Rind of 1 orange, thinly pared and cut into strips
12 ripe figs
1. Put the spices, sugar and orange rind in a pan. Add 2 ½ C water and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer for 10 minutes.
2. Add the figs and simmer for 5 minutes. Do not let it boil.
3. Remove the figs and return the syrup to the heat. Bring the syrup back to a boil and cook over medium heat until reduced by half.
4. Strain and pour the syrup over the figs and cool completely.

Here is a good example of the problems with this cookbook. On Wednesday my friend is coming for dinner and we are going to have Duck with Figs. This recipe is one duck and 5.5 # of figs! That is 2, 11 by 18 pans of figs that are to be cut in half and a little of a quarter # of butter put in each and then baked until golden brown. I started the process with less than half the amount of figs. It is probably still way too many, but as you add them to the duck after you finish it and all the sauce, I can use the remaining with other meats. I will blog this recipe on Wednesday.
Fig Focaccia
This is from Lidia’s Family Table. Jim and I had a piece right out of the oven and it is very good. If I made it again I would do some things differently.
1 pkg. dry yeast
1 ¼ C warm water
1 t salt
About 2 ¾ C unbleached all-purpose flour
2 t EVOO
About 1/3 C cornmeal
Topping:
1Pt. fresh figs
2 T sugar
1. Put the yeast in the large mixing bowl of your mixer that has a dough hook. Add ¼ C warm water and proof the yeast. Mix the salt with the remaining cup of water. Add the water to the bowl and 2 ½ C flour. Attach the dough hook and knead for 2 minutes. This dough is very wet.
2. Lightly flour a work surface and scrape the dough out of the bowl on the surface. Turn the dough over on itself several times, using a dough scraper and your floured hands.
3. Clean the mixing bowl and oil it lightly. Dump the dough in and turn it to grease all over. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and let rise unit it has more than doubled in volume.
4. Select 8 figs and save them for the topping. Chop the rest roughly and mix them in the risen dough, deflating it and mixing in evenly.
5. Here is where I differ with Lidia. She has you put it on a flat sheet over corn meal, spread to 8x 11 and bake. I think that I will next time grease and flour an 8 x 11 Pyrex pan and put the dough in. Her way it spreads out and gets very crusty on the edge. The corn meal also was little help with sticking.
6. Either way cut the saved figs in half and pres into the dough cut side up and sprinkle with the sugar.
7. Preheat the oven to 425. Let the dough rest for 20 minutes while the oven heats. Bake for 25 minutes. Cool for 10 minutes before serving.
If someone comes to visit while the figs are still in season, I will make this again for breakfast. Ya’ll come in September for this amazing breakfast treat.
Finally but not in that order I did the Fig Relish for a chicken dish later this week. You are probably wondering, why is she doing all this in one day for meals the whole week? Figs deteriorate very quickly that is why they are not grocery store friendly. This relish tastes amazing.
2 T balsamic vinegar
1 T minced shallot
Sea salt and ground pepper
8 oz ripe figs
2 t chopped mint leaves
¼ t minced rosemary leaves
Mix together and store until ready to grille 4 chicken breasts. I will do this later in the week.