Bring us a Figgy Pudding (with chocolate)
This is a very simple dessert, the sauce is sweet and a good contrast to fleshy figs, the flaked almonds add texture and crunch to an otherwise soft dish.
Poached Figs with White Chocolate Sauce
Serves 4
6 fresh figs, stalk removed and halved
1 dessert spoon of honey (I used Scottish Heather Honey)
100ml water
50g good quality white chocolate (I used Hadleigh Maid white chocolate buttons)
25g flaked almonds
1. Place the figs cut side upwards in a pan, add the water and the honey, poach gently until the fig skin is soft, it won't take to long about 8-10 minutes.
2. Remove the figs to a plate, increase the heat and reduce the honey sauce by half.
3. Remove from the heat and add the white chocolate buttons, stirring until they have melted and combined with the honey sauce.
4. Pour a little sauce in each bowl, top with three fig halves and sprinkle some flaked almonds around the figs.
I'm am entering this dish for the
December We Should Cocoa, the monthly blog event run by Choclette at
Chocolate Log Blog. The theme this month is figs which are paired, of course, with chocolate. If you would like to join in, the linky is open until 28th December.
Labels: almonds, figs, honey, poached, We should Cocoa, white chocolate
Gingered Figs - Slow Cooker Challenge, September 2014
'
Tis the 'season of mists and mellow fruitfulness'. Hopefully we won't have too many mists just yet, as summer seems to have returned for a few more days, however I am looking for some fruitfulness as
September's Slow Cooker Challenge is cook with
FRUIT in your slow cooker.
Your dish can be sweet or savoury as long as it contains some fruit. My recipe is a simple one, I love baked figs and thought it would be easy to pop them in the slow cooker and it worked really well.
Slow Cooker Gingered Figs
4 ripe figs
50ml orange juice
4 dessert spoons
Mackays Spiced Ginger Preserve (or chopped preserved ginger)
1. Cut the hard part of the stem from the top of the figs, then slice a cross into the top of each one, be careful not to cut all the way to the bottom or your figs will fall apart.
2. Place the figs in the basin of the slow cooker, open out the sections of the fig a little and fill the space with a dessert spoon of Ginger Preserve.
3. Pour the orange juice around the figs and cover with the lid.
4. Bake on low for 2-3 hours.
5. Remove the figs from the slow cooker to a serving dish, pour the juices into a pan and bring to a rapid boil, reducing the syrup by half, then pour this over the figs and chill in the fridge for at least an hour.
6. Serve with greek yogurt, drizzling the syrup over the figs and yogurt.
If you would like to take part in the Slow Cooker Challenge, then please:
- Make your recipe in your Slow Cooker and post a photograph and the recipe, or a link to a recipe, on your blog
- Link to Farmersgirl Kitchen
- Use the Slow Cooker Challenge logo in your post
- If you use twitter, tweet your post with @FarmersgirlCook and #SlowCookerChallenge and I will re-tweet it to my followers AND post your picture on the dedicated Pinterest Board.
Rules:
- Please do not publish recipes from cookbooks on your blog without permission, they are copyright.
- If you are using recipes from another website, please link to the recipe on the website rather than publishing the recipe.
- One entry per blog.
- Recipes must be added to the linky by the 28th of each month.
The phrase 'season of mists and mellow fruitfulness' comes from John Keats' poem 'To Autumn'
Labels: figs, fresh figs, Fruit, Ginger, September, Slow Cooker Challenge, spiced ginger Mackays
Chicken Stuffed with Figs and Goats Cheese
How exactly are you supposed to react when you are contacted by a goat? That's Ethel the Goat from
Capricorn Goats Cheese who invited me to join the #CarpricornChallenge - national search for goatally scrumptious recipes using ingredients from Somerset including
Capricorn Goats Cheese.
Ethel sent me this amazing hamper full of lovely goodies, it was packed with jars and bottles, packets and fresh produce.
After looking at the ingredients, I had a bit of a think and decided to stuff some chicken legs with goat's cheese, figs, honey and thyme in a sort of, Somerset meets Scotland meets Greece, kind of way.
Chicken Legs stuffed with Figs, Goats Cheese and Honey
4 Chicken legs (thigh and drumstick)
1 100g drum of Capricorn Goats Cheese
4 figs, quartered
8 teaspoons of honey
2 tsp chopped fresh thyme leaves
salt and freshly ground black pepper
for the sauce
1 tbsp olive oil
chicken bones
1/4 pint water
1/2 tsp chopped thyme leaves
stock vegetables e.g. chopped celery, carrot, onion (I also used some coriander stems which I had frozen as per Melanie at
Edible Things - a brilliant idea for saving veg bits for making stock later)
salt & freshly ground pepper
I've made a little YouTube Video to show you how to debone your chicken,
it's really easy and creates a perfect pocket for all kinds of
stuffings.
So once you have your chicken leg without the bones in it, stuff it with chopped figs, goats cheese, thyme, salt and freshly ground pepper, more figs, more goats cheese and two teaspoons of honey. Then close up and secure with cocktail sticks.
Now make the sauce, heat the oil in a pan, add the bones and cook until
the little bits of chicken left on them start to turn golden. Add the
vegetables and cook for two minutes, then add the water, thyme and
seasoning. Bring to the boil, then simmer for about 20 minutes.
Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a pan and brown the stuffed chicken legs. Remove the chicken legs to an ovenproof dish and deglaze the pan with 1/4 pint of cider, I used
Burrow Hill Farm Pressed, Somerset Cider Add this to the stock/sauce and pour around the chicken legs.
Bake in the oven for 15 - 20 minutes until the juices of the chicken, when pierced with a skewer, run clear. Remove the skewers from the chicken legs and once on the plate, strain the sauce through a sieve to remove any bits.
Serve the stuffed chicken legs with the sauce. I also served roasted vegetables, including red onion, red peppers, butternut squash and halved tomatoes.
Now I'm not normally a huge fan of goats cheese but the Carpricorn Goats Cheese was mild and creamy and delicious and complemented the other stuffing flavours and the chicken very well. The sauce was particularly good and some of the cheese had leaked out into it and went well with the tang of the Burrow Hill cider.
Disclaimer: This is a sponsored post. I was not required to write a positive review and any opinion expressed is my own. Labels: butternut squash, Capricorn Goats Cheese, competition, figs, hamper, honey, roasted red peppers, Somerset, tomatoes
Honey Baked Figs with Oranges
Figs were on special offer at the supermarket and, as I love them, I bought a pack of four. Then I had to think what I was going to do with them! In the end I decided to split them open, drizzle them with honey and bake them in the oven.
They were probably in the oven for about 20 minutes at 180C, but I just kept an eye on them so they didn't start to shrink too much.
Then I peeled and segmented some oranges and put them and their juice into a glass serving dish (charity shop purchase!) and put the figs on top.
Served with creme fraiche and a sprinkling of chopped pistachio nuts. It was a nice light dessert but with the richness of the honey and figs, the creamy acidity of the creme frache and the crunch of the nuts, it was bloody marvelous!Labels: creme fraiche, dessert, figs, fresh figs, honey, oranges, pistachio nuts
