Wrapped Figs

Wrapped Figs

Roasted figs are one of my favourites! But I was usually using them to make sweet deserts. Some years ago now, one of my friend cooked a starter not too dissimilar to this one and I thought it was brilliant! So I can't take any credit for this one, it is very largely inspired by my friend's dish but I tweaked a few little things to make it more to my taste. I swapped bacon for Serrano ham. I found it a little too greasy with bacon, there's already goat's cheese for the fat bit. Added a bit of sweetness and crunch to it to balance the saltiness and give it a bit of texture.

They are very easy to make and I think they look pretty cool too! Good thing is that you can eat that warm just out of the oven but you can also prepare them in advance and they are still delicious cold.

The key though is to get some good figs, ripe and sweet because otherwise this recipe will not really work.

For 4 people you will need:

4 Figs
4 slices of Serrano ham
4 Cubes of goats cheese about the size of a sugar cube (I like to use a strong cheese you can't fit much of it into the fig so the flavour needs to come through)
50 g of flaked almonds
2 tbs of honey (1 for glazing/1for the balsamic reduction)
15 mL of balsamic vinegar

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 175^oC.

Put the almond flakes in a hot frying pan and toast until they get to a golden colour.
Set aside to cool. I like to crush them a little to get smaller chunks but you can keep them whole too if you prefer.

For the balsamic reduction, head to a very gentle boil the vinegar and 1 tbs of honey. The liquid will progressiely become thicker. When it coats  the back of a spoon take your reduction off the heat. It will thicken during the cooling process to a syrupy constistency.

Cut the figs from the pointed top down into four stopping half way through the fig. Push the base of the figs with your thumb and index (all 4 fingers at the same time) to make the top of the fig open up like a flower. Let's call the quarters sticking out "petals" for the fest of the recipe.

 

 

Take one slice of Serrano ham and fold into two lenghtway. It will strengthen it for wrapping around the fig. Try to wrap it close to the base of the fig and secure with a cocktail stick. Ideally your ham will come half way up the fig, to the level where the petals start.
Brush the petals with honey and put in the oven for 7 min.

Take your figs out of the oven just to pop in the cube of cheese in the middle of the petals and then put back in the oven until the cheese has melted (around 3 min). You can use the grill function of your oven to melt the cheese if you prefer but you would have to keep a close eye on them as the top of the fig petals could rapidly turn into chard.

Take the cocktail sticks out, place your figs on a bed of salad (I like lamb's lettuce with this).
Drizzle the balsamic reduction on top and sprinkle with the toasted almonds.

It's ready! Hopefully you will like it!