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What is That and How Do I Eat It?

~ strangeandyummy farmer's market finds

Category Archives: Brown

Figs in a Blanket

26 Wednesday Jun 2013

Posted by strangeandyummy in Black, Brown, Fall, Fruit, Green, Miscellany, Summer

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

earthy, fig, pink, raw, rich, slimy, smooth, soft, sweet

Growing up in a humid, mid-Atlantic suburb on the East Coast, the only figs I knew of were the Newton varietal – but man oh man were they tasty!  So when I moved to California and starting expanding my fruit and vegetable repertoire (not a difficult task, when my chosen produce at the time consisted of apples, berries, and iceberg lettuce), what could be tastier, I thought, than the inside filling of a cookie fruited cake.

black figsBleh.  Raw fresh figs do NOT taste like fig newtons minus the cake part, just FYI.  Some people, lots of people in fact, love them, but I am not one of them.  So I thought I hated figs.

But as with  most things in life sliced figs(I swear to you, I promise on all that is good and holy, at some point soon I will post a whole series of posts that are kosher and/or vegetarian and/or vegan and/or don’t negate all their yummy nutrients by simply mixing with bacon and/or goat cheese…but today is not that day) they just needed to be wrapped in pork product to change my view.

Raw figs have a hint of sweetness, and a somewhat earthy, flowery flavor.  When very ripe, they’re quite syrupy and gain sweetness, but to me the flavor is like a mushroom masquerading as a pear, with a suggestion of banana.  fresh figIt’s the mushroom quality I don’t care for, along with the slightly slimy texture broken by the rows of seeds that makes me feel a little like I’m biting into a raw sea creature.  Dried figs, on the other hand, are basically candy, a concentration of sugar so sweet and yet so complex that I knew there was something in there worth exploring, even if it wasn’t eating the fruit raw out of hand.

Do something to a fresh fig, however, and you’re in entirely different territory – and when I say something, I mean almost anything.  Poach in red spiced wine for a winter dessert served over ice cream, roast with any number of meats for a restaurant-quality entree, or bake into pies, galettes, tarts, cakes, or custards for a multi-layered flavor extravaganza of a dessert.  Figs are incredibly versatile, and incredibly delicious if you pair them with anything that stands up to their complexity.

figs and prosciuttoThere are several varieties of figs, ranging in color from dark almost black, to almost lime green.  They’ll get softer and softer as they ripen, and are at their sweetest when fully ripe (edible even to the point of mush if you plan on baking or something), but they don’t travel that well once they get close to that stage, so look for a little softness without bruises.  They should feel slightly heavy for their size, and should smell slightly sweet, not sour.  Very firm figs will not ripen further, so don’t buy them.  To prepare them, I like to slice off the hard bit of stem at the top, but otherwise everything is edible, skin, seeds and all.

I love sweet and savory together.  Medieval cuisine, aka gamey meats and dried fruit? Awesome.  Mediterranean couscous salad with raisins?  Bring it.  Chicken salad with grapes? My favorite.  My husband? Not so much.  And by not so much, I mean I sneak the fancy prepared salad bar at Whole Foods when I have to buy lunch, and that is the extent of my exotic pairings.  He doesn’t even do pork chops with applesauce or lamb with jelly (which, come to think of it, neither do I, so I guess our marriage is saved).  So imagine my delight when I not only discovered this dish, but discovered that he loved it.  Sweet, salty, savory – it could be a dessert if you put a sweet balsamic glaze on it, but makes an even nicer salad on top of a bed of arugula and a simple balsamic vinaigrette; but we like them just the way they are: delicate appetizers that you can pop in your mouth, the prosciutto crisp around the edges and the juices of the meat and fig mingling into a salty sweet syrup that pools beneath each morsel.  As fancy appetizers go, they’re fast, decadent, and would be elegant if we didn’t end up licking our plates afterwards.  A true endorsement, indeed.

figs are doneFigs in a Blanket

      • Fresh figs
      • Goat cheese
      • Sliced prosciutto (2 slices per 3 whole figs)

Options: balsamic vinegar, crusty bread, arugula, blue cheese

Slice the figs in half lengthwise.  Slice each slice of prosciutto into thirds lengthwise.  Place a small portion of goat cheese in the center of the fig.

goat cheese figWrap the fig and cheese in a thin slice of prosciutto

DSCF6335fig in prosciutto

fig wrapped in prosciuttoand place in a 400 degree oven for approximately 10 minutes, or until the prosciutto begins to brown and crisp at the edges.  (We cook them on an aluminum foil-wrapped sheet in the toaster oven for easy cleanup – it gets messy.) Serve warm, but not immediately – the centers get very, very hot and we always burn ourselves when we pop them in our mouth too quickly.

Other options?  Drizzle with balsamic for a little acidity to cut the sweetness, serve with crusty bread to sop up the syrup that will form on the pan, or serve over arugula for an elegant appetizer/salad.  Some versions call for blue cheese instead of the goat, so feel free if that’s your preference, but we’ve tried it both ways and in my opinion, the goat lends a sweet tanginess that goes better with the fig.  If you use blue, I would definitely add the drizzle of balsamic.

figs in a blanket

For fresh figs:

Peel/Trim?  No.  Everything is edible, though I do like to cut off the top stem – just a centimeter or two.
Edible seed?  Yes.  Technically, it’s an inside-out flower, but whatever, you can eat the whole thing.
Edible when raw?  Yes.  Best when very ripe.
Worth the price of organic? Unclear.  Figs aren’t that common,  so they don’t show up on various “Dirty Dozen” or “Safe” lists at all, and from looking into growing them, it looks like they’re easy to grow in the right climate, and the main problems that affect fig trees can’t be controlled chemically, so it’s probably a reasonable assumption that conventional figs are not heavily doused in chemicals.  If you’re buying dried, however, I would err on organic because whatever’s there is going to be concentrated in the drying process, as well as probably have sulfites added, as most conventional dried fruit does to keep them moist.
In season: Early Summer briefly, and then Late Summer through Fall for the main crop – though in a place like Southern California where they grow well, you can usually find them all summer long.
Best with: Almonds, hazelnuts, vanilla, orange, cinnamon, black pepper, rosemary, arugula or other sharp greens, gamey or strong meats, rich/creamy cheeses or desserts (custard, ice cream, etc.), deep red, jammy wines (port especially)
How to Store:  In the coldest part of the fridge for up to 3 days, max.  Don’t wash them before storing – if they get wet, they’ll mold quickly.  If they’re already soft or squishy, use immediately as they won’t keep.

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The Illustrious Avocado

01 Sunday Jan 2012

Posted by strangeandyummy in Brown, Fall, Fruit, Green, Spring, Summer, Vegetables, Winter

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

avocado, bumpy, creamy, pit, raw, skin, soft

Alright, so an avocado isn’t the most exotic food to start a page called “Strange and Yummy,” but when you grew up with your vegetable choice of frozen peas, frozen corn, or the more mysterious frozen mixed vegetables – consisting of frozen peas, frozen corn, frozen carrots, and the dreaded lima bean – an avocado was a revelation.  Other than pre-sliced on my California Turkey sandwich at Au Bon Pain, I don’t think I saw an avocado in the flesh until I actually moved to California at the age of 20. 

If you’re an avocado newbie like I was, you might be wary of their alien bumpy skin, afraid of their fatty reputation, or worried about what occasionally appears to be green goo oozing out of the sides of the sandwich.  You shouldn’t be.  An avocado is nature’s mayonnaise.  Well, okay, if you hate mayonnaise, you might not like an avocado.  A ripe avocado is silky and almost eggy in its richness.  If you splash it with fruit vinegar you’ll notice that an avocado is technically a fruit, not a veg, but an avocado really shines with fresh garlic, ripe tomatoes, shellfish like crab and shrimp – especially with a sharp acid to counter the smooth, slightly sweet avocado, like a splash of lemon, lime or balsamic vinegar.  An avocado is equally at home mashed into a guacamole and served with chips or served in a crystal martini glass filled with fresh ceviche, in California rolls, in salads, and divine in a BLT. 

Okay, it’s definitely weird that a fruit can be fatty.  That just seems…wrong, doesn’t it?  I’d think it was unfair somehow, but the nice part at least is that at least avocados are full of the good kinds of fat – you know, the kind that gives you boobs instead of love handles.  Wait, that’s not what that means?  Oh.  Anyway, it’s full of yummy yummy good fat and lots of vitamin E, which doesn’t show up in tons of places and is absorbed best with food instead of supplements and is super good for you but now I forget why because all the knowledge on nutrition I used to have memorized has been replaced with versions of the Alphabet Song.  The perils of having a toddler.

So what to do with it?  First, you’ve got to know what to look for.  A ripe avocado should have a little give when you squeze it; if it’s soft or actually squishy, it’s overripe.  It might still be good in something mashed into oblivion, but it will be too squishy to holds its shape in anything else.  Don’t squeeze too hard or too obviously though – ripe avocados actually bruise pretty easily, and sellers don’t like people mushing up their produce. 

Avocados start out with bright green skin (some varieties are quite smooth, most regularly available kinds are bumpy) and turn brown as they ripen.  Again, too brown and it’s too ripe.  A little hint of green is a good thing to look for unless you plan on using it as soon as you get home.

 

Cut the avocado in half lengthwise, but watch out for the big pit, and watch out for your hand.  That’s how I got this scar:

Okay, you can’t really see it, but I know it’s there and it hurt like a sonofabitch when I stabbed myself with the tip of the steak knife.  I never use the right knife for the job, by the way. 

The inside will be greener towards the skin, paler towards the pit, and will usually get a little yellowish when it’s really ripe.  If it’s hard – not apple hard, even just green-tipped banana hard – it’ll be bitter and gross.  You want it soft and creamy – if there’s any separation of layers or brown spots, cut them out and use the rest.  See these?

That’s separation.  This guy’s getting close to guacamole time.

Something I just discovered from a grower this fall?  You can keep avocados in the fridge to stop them from ripening.  I know, I know, you can do that with almost everything, but I’d always heard avocados were counter fruit.  Not so!

You can use the sharp tip of a knife to jab the pit and pluck it out – envisioning some enemy’s eyeball if it makes you feel a little more badass when making a salad – but I’ve got issues with knives slipping away from me (see nonexistent scar above), so I like to sort of wrestle it out with a fingernail even if it mangles the pretty indent a bit. 

Use a big spoon to get between the thick skin and the avocado flesh and take out the whole half at once, then slice, dice, julienne or mash to your heart’s content.

So now to the yummy part…Yay!  I love avocados.  I could eat them almost every day.  I personally don’t like them even the least bit warm – maybe someone out there has a recipe that uses them cooked, but I haven’t seen one – so I don’t even like to put them on top of something like an omelette until it’s already on the table.  My favorite way to eat them is the simplest: cut one avocado and one tomato that’s roughly the same size into roughly the same size chunks.  Add a little raw red onion if you’re feeling snazzy.  Drizzle with balsamic vinegar and maybe the tiniest bit of olive oil if you want more of a dressing, sprinkle with salt and garlic powder and enjoy!

Except once you’ve had farmer’s market tomatoes fresh from the sun in summer, grocery store tomatoes in the dead of winter are pale pink lumps of tastelessness, so instead I’ll be eating today’s purchase in my secret non-dairy tuna salad recipe:

Mash half of one ripe avocado.  Drain one can water-packed tuna and mix together.  Add a splash of lemon juice and some garlic powder if you’re more adult-like, or a teaspoon of pickle relish if you’re a traditionalist.  Voila!  Tuna salad without the mayo.   I had some lovely pics of it piled elegantly on crackers, but when all is said and done, well, tuna salad, even with avocado, looks a little like pinkish mush.  And I accidentally deleted them from the camera while they were downloading.  But trust me, it tastes delicious.

This is how I get my son to eat avocado, by the way – he used to love it raw when he was just starting solids, but now he wants nothing to do with it, so I have to hide it in tuna salads so he gets that precious vitamin E.  What’s that for again?

Peel? Definitely – skin is inedible.
Edible seed? Nope.  Pit it.
Edible when raw?  Definitely.  At its best.
Worth the price of organic?  Not really.  Their thick skin protects them from absorbing most pesticides.
In season: Haas avocados (the most common kind available) from January through fall in California.  Since they’re a more tropical fruit, they’re usually in season somewhere in the world all the time.
Best with: shellfish, garlic, cilantro, tomatoes, red onions
How to Store: A heated debate, especially when cut into, which we’ll get into another time.  Whole avocados can be stored in the fridge to make them last longer or on the counter to ripen.  Once ripe, store in the fridge for two days to a week.  If you overbought, you can puree the ripe flesh with a squeeze of lemon or lime juice and freeze for up to five months.

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