In season: Figs
By Jonathan Bender in Organic
Mon., Oct. 5 2009 @ 10:45AM
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While I've heard their taste described as a mix between a peach and a strawberry, it's safe to say that the pulpy flesh is richly sweet and juicy when they're properly ripened. If you're picking figs, you want to know what color they are supposed to be when they're ripe -- there are a number of varieties from yellow to black.
While the texture should have some give, as with most fruit you want to avoid the mushy ones. Figs need to be refrigerated in order to keep, but it's still best to eat them a few days after you buy them.
The other reason to buy figs is that you can pair them with a lot of food that's in the tasty but bad-for-you camp. Prusciutto-wrapped figs are the right balance of salty and sweet and have this always-desirable ratio: It's not hard to make them and you get a lot of praise. On the other end of the spectrum, figs are a good addition to a salad, and can be substituted for dried berries in most recipes.
Although I've never attempted to make a fig cocktail, it seems eminently possible if you were to treat the juice like that of watermelon or ripe berries. This fig cocktail uses blueberry-infused vodka and ginger simple syrup in what sounds like a time-intensive winner.
[Image via Flickr: lepiaf.geo]
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