Appeasing the sugar-craving dessert demons, as well as maintaining variety can be a juggling act. It’s usually best to stick with the tried and true rather than chance “mixing it up” and end up being disappointed, and sending your already overtired husband out to pick up a Twix or Haagen Daaz (I’ve heard stories about this happening).
While flipping through Nigella’s “Forever Summer”, and contemplating writing a West Coast version (working title options: “Barely Summer”, “Never Summer”, “It Still Ain’t REALLY Summer, but Screw it, I’m Gonna Cook Like it is!”), I came across her recipe for “Figs for a Thousand and One Nights”
I was intrigued. Not so much by the title (although lovely), or the preparation (although simple), but rather by the fact that I had a container of figs in the fridge which I’d purchased in one of those spur of the moment “Oooo! Fresh figs!” instances. Had it not been for Madame Lawson, and the timely stumbling upon of the recipe, I’m quite certain the plastic clamshell holding the figs would’ve soon proven to be their coffin.
Additional interest was piqued by the presence of orange flower water in the recipe. Few things put me in mind of Morocco quite so completely. Okay, maybe standing in a sauna with exhaust blowing in my face while being harassed to “Come in! Just browse!” would place as a close second, but since the sauna seems to be on the fritz these days I’ll just stick with the flower water.
As you probably guessed, I didn’t follow the recipe quite to the prescribed letter. Primarily due to the fact that I didn’t have the EXACT ingredients on hand, so I ad libbed. C’mon, I had orange flower water. I deserve points for that alone!
Here’re the two ingredient listings, so you can compare how completely unprepared to properly make this I truly was. Please note I admit to my shortcomings at the end, but not a moment before.
Nigella’s Recipe
· 12 black figs
· 50g unsalted butter
· 1 tsp ground cinnamon
· 1 Tbsp vanilla sugar
· 1 ½ tsp rosewater
· 1 ½ tsp orange flower water
To garnish
· 500 g mascarpone cheese
· 100 g slivered pistachios
My recipe (not that I’m in disagreement with Nigella. This is just what I had on hand)
· 8 green Calmyrna figs
· 3 tbsp butter
· ½ tsp cinnamon
· what the hell is vanilla sugar? I used 1 Tbsp sugar with about ¼ tsp vanilla extract
· 2 tsp orange flower water
To garnish (mixed in a bowl)
· ¼ cup cream cheese
· ½ tsp icing sugar
· few drops Grand Marnier
Start out by cutting the figs into quarters, but not all the way through. Open and place in a baking pan.
Over low heat, melt the butter and add the cinnamon, vanilla, sugar, and flower water. Stir and pour over the prepared figs.
Nigella says to “blister under the hot grill for a few minutes and then serve” a couple figs per person, with a dollop of mascarpone (fancied-up cream cheese), a drizzle of the syrup from the pan, and the pistachios (errrr… I put a sprig of lavender in the picture. That counts, right?!)
Admission of Defeat?
No. FAR from defeated. End result: it truly does taste incredible, and completely reminiscent of repasts taken in the cool shade of our riad's balcony. However, I found there to be some textural issues. This is most likely to do with my own choice of alterations to the recipe. Things I would do different in future are as follows:
I. I would be more inclined to try and cook the butter & sugar mix into more of a syrup before being drizzled over the figs. It didn’t pan out so well in my instance, but it could well have been because of the additional moisture and alcohol of the vanilla extract.
II. A hot oven is probably better than under the broiler. The tips were browning long before the rest of the figs seemed to be affected. Also the syrup really hadn’t had a chance to carmelize (see point I).
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