Figs, while insanely delicious, are little ticking time bombs. By the time they make it to your fridge, fresh figs generally have two days (at best) of usefulness left. Their incredibly short lifespan means most people never get a chance to work with fresh figs.
I got to by accident. My organic delivery service (not nearly as expensive as it sounds) has a function called “surprise me.” For $2 extra per week, the grocery company sends me… something. Usually something I have no idea how to use. This week, it was figs.
I was utterly at a loss. They looked almost like garlic bulbs, except green and less lumpy. I tried opening one up to scrape out the seedy goodness inside but succeeded only in mangling the fruit beyond recognition. It was time to get serious.
I looked up fig recipes on various foodie sites, but seeing as how figs are about as enduring as snowflakes in Texas, they don’t seem to be too popular. Most of the recipes I did find involved jam/sauce/glaze made from figs rather than whole, figgy deliciousness. But I noticed several that incorporated some combination of goat cheese, basil and balsamic vinegar. So I improvised.
I wish I’d taken a photo of my creation, because these things looked hella strange. After I had cut each fig into a star-like shape, the opened bulbs were reminiscent of exotic, carniverous plants on some alien world. I topped each with a dollop of chevre, drizzled on some balsamic vinegar and stuck them in the oven for a while. When they came out, I sprinkled a little chopped basil on each fig.
The result? Heavenly. The sweetness of the figs, the tanginess of the cheese and the vinegar… there are no words. One might improve upon the combination by reducing the vinegar into a thicker syrup before drizzling to intensify the flavor and help it stick better. But the straight-from-the-bottle stuff works just fine.
If you’re lucky enough to be graced with fresh figs anytime soon, I highly recommend combining them in some way with chevre, balsamic vinegar and basil. Perhaps some sort of dipping situation might be the order of the day? Maybe a bread-type apparatus would be appropriate? Just be sure to use the damn things within a couple of days, or they’ll explode. It happened to my great aunt. True story.
