Roasted figs with pistachios and Soreen

 A life of a foodie blogger has its own perks as well as lovely surprises. In the last month I received two unexpected parcels with Soreen products. No note enclosed, no tasks given, a total mystery. A sliced original malt-flavoured Soreen was quickly demolished, toasted and buttered (I love to use the salted butter on Soreen for a delicious sweet & salty combination).

My guys were particularly pleased with a new Toffee Apple Soreen renamed Scream for the coming Halloween. It is a delightful squidgy apple-flavoured loaf with toffee pieces.

Orange Soreen is another tasty variety of the British icon cake. It is much lighter in colour than the original malt loaf, generously speckled with juicy raisins. I wanted to use it in a dessert of roasted figs.

Roasted figs with pistachios and Soreen
Ingredients:
6 figs
4 thick slices of Orange Soreen
a handful of pistachios (about 2 per fig), chopped
2tbsp maple syrup
100ml Pimm's

First make the Soreen croutons, by slicing the loaf in thick 1cm slices, then cutting into cubes. Place them on a tray in the oven preheated to 180C for about 7 minutes.

Slice each fig in quarters, not quite all the way down, so that you can open it and put chopped pistachios inside. Place all the figs in a small roasting tin or ceramic dish. Drizzle with the maple syrup and pour Pimm's in. Roast for about 20 minutes at 180C. Add the Soreen croutons, and cook for another 5 minutes.

Serve with custard or cream, or even ice cream.
You get the soft figs with crunchy nuts and crisped Soreen croutons. Simply lovely.

If you liked this recipe suggestion, you might like to try Grilled peach and Soreen with ice cream.

Fig and almond crostata

Our weekly fruit and vegetable market is just on my way to school, and if you visit it later in the day, almost at closing time, you can get really good bargains. As I was passing through the market last Thursday, I could hear the fruit vendor shouting at the top of his voice "10 figs for £3!" and couldn't resist such a nice offer. I got my fresh figs, picked up my younger son from school, and we rushed home to wait for the school bus, bringing my older son home. My initial plan was to make some fig chutney, but then I happened to discover a recipe for fig and almond confiture with Vin Santo on Simona's Kitchen blog. It looked delightfully sophisticated and I just had to try it. After I made a big jar, I used the confiture as a filling for a crostata for yesterday's lunch.

Do read Simona's recipe, I followed her advice closely enough, though I had to adapt it to suit the amount of figs, and change some ingredients slightly.

I used a dark variety of figs. When I weighed them, the total weight was 750g. The original recipe suggested that sugar should be roughly half the weight if figs. I didn't have enough of Vin Santo, only leftovers in the bottle, so I mixed it with Muscat wine.
Please read Simona's recipe for the precise list of ingredients.
I soaked the quartered figs in sugar and sweet wine overnight, then cooked for half an hour with the almonds and 4 Rose Extract Spice Drops (added by the end of cooking).

Rose Extract Spice Drops from Holy Lama are a concentrated essence of rose. You literally need just a few drops to add a beautiful aroma and enhance the taste. Rose is a trendy ingredient nowadays, though I have been using it quite a while. I always dry the rose petals from my garden to add to my cooking. Rose Spice Drops have an exquisite smell, I can probably wear it as a perfume.
Going back to my confiture, it was simply luscious, sweet, elegant and very tasty.

As for the crostata, I used a ready-made Jus-Rol shortcrust pastry. I might not get any points from the virtuous cooks and judges at GBBO for using a ready-made pastry (Quelle Horreur! Sacrilege!), but my family loved my dessert. My in-laws are visiting us this week, and they enjoyed my baking very much. I served it with cream, and once I finished my slice and took an empty plate back to the kitchen, I couldn't resist licking my plate. Yes, it was that good.

If you don't have fresh figs, there is a similar recipe for a crostata made with dried figs soaked in marsala, and very tasty it is as well.

Schwartz Grill Mates Deep South Brown Sugar Marinade Mix

As it happens, the Brits are as enthusiastic about the grilled food as those BBQ aficionados across the pond. The BBQed and grilled food has become a trend which stays put. If you are happy to lick your fingers eating sticky food from the BBQ, you'll be glad to know that this summer Schwartz has launched a new range of Grill Mates™. This range is "featuring exciting US flavour combinations that will bring to life any barbecue dish. Simply add one of the four delicious marinades to transform your meat or fish before cooking on the grill."
The specially-formulated Schwartz Grill Mates™ Marinade Mixes are available in a sachet; they serve 4-6 people and are available in four tasty flavours: Mojito Lime, Deep South Brown Sugar, Cajun and Smokey Texan.

Schwartz is proud to inform us that "it sources only the highest quality herbs and spices from all over the world and is committed to making great flavour simpler for everyone. The Grill Mates™ range reflects the trend of infusing foods with cocktail-inspired flavours, which appeared in the 2008 Flavour Forecast, produced by parent company McCormick. The new Schwartz Grill Mates™ range will be available nationwide from all leading supermarkets (RRP £1.00)".

As it happened, we had guests coming for dinner yesterday and having perused the selection of Grill Mates, I've decided to prepare the pork tenderloin with Schwartz Grill Mates Deep South Brown Sugar Marinade Mix.

To prepare this sweet and spicy marinade mix with a hint of whisky, you will need
1 sachet of Schwartz Grill Mates South Brown Sugar Marinade Mix
50ml oil
2tbsp orange juice
2tbsp white wine vinegar
Mix all the ingredients together in a small bowl.

I have also added juice from half a lime to the marinade.

Set aside a couple of tbsp for basting, pour and rub the rest over the meat of your choice. Cover and leave to marinade for 15 minutes minimum (or even leave it overnight). I left it for a couple of hours.
The marinade is aromatic and very colourful.

This Grill Mates mix is made with the brown sugar, salt, tomato powder, chilli powder, honey powder, red bell peppers, sunflower oil etc
It doesn't contain any artificial colours, added MSG, preservatives or hydrogenated fat.
Pork tenderloin is a lean cut, but delicious. If you baste it regularly, it won't dry and be juicy and tasty.

As you can see, I didn't cook the pork on the BBQ. Our vintage BBQ is too rusty (maybe I will win it one day? wishful thinking, as I keep entering all competitions to win a BBQ).
Once the pork was left to marinade for a couple of hours, the ceramic tray went in the oven preheated to 180C.

I have also sliced two pears and added them to the tray with 100ml rose wine and juice of half a lime and half an orange. The rose wine was one of those indescribable varieties that typically appear in the dinner for £10 offers in Sainsbury's or Waitrose, not entirely bad but not exciting either. The pears were added after the pork was cooked for at least half an hour at 180C (then I lowered the temperature and cooked for another 45 minutes).
Serve with the roasted baby sweet peppers and roast potatoes.

My friends are used now to being guinea pigs for my new recipes and jokingly ask "Is that for your blog?" when I serve something new to them. This dish has been unanimously voted as a success.


If you liked this recipe suggestion, keep an eye on my future posts, as I have been sent a selection of new Schwartz products for testing and reviewing.

For more information about the range and further mealtime inspiration, visit Schwartz. Join the conversation on Facebook at SchwartzCookingClub and Twitter at @SchwartzCooking

Vibrant figs and autumn feasts

Pork leg paupiettes with figs

A disadvantage of being married to an Italian is that you tend to eat lots of pasta. While my husband doesn't get bored with pasta, I cannot possibly eat it for several days in a row without an inner protest. Even if every day it is a different pasta dish. I was wandering around our local Waitrose, thinking what to cook for dinner that would not invlove pasta, when I've noticed that Pork leg paupiettes were on offer. I haven't cooked pork for ages, and decided it might do for dinner.
The paupiettes came stuffed with shallot and herbs.

Ingredients:
2 pork leg paupiettes
2 fresh figs
1 apple
olive oil
sea salt
pepper
a small glass of marsala

Place two paupiettes in a frying pan with the olive oil and brown the sides. It takes about 3 minutes per side. Put the browned pieces in a small ceramic dish, add sliced apples and figs, salt and pepper, pour the marsala over and place the dish in the oven preheated to 200C. Lower the heat to 180C and roast for half an hour. Serve with the roast potatoes and grilled mushrooms.
As the paupiettes came with two small pieces of herby butter, I removed them and used on top of the grilled mushrooms.

Roast butternut squash with figs (side dish)

It's a season for figs.
We have a beautiful fig tree in the garden, but in five years since we moved to our current address, we had ripe figs only once, in summer of 2011. This year the tree stood naked for a very long time, and I was worried that the spring frosts have damaged it. Slowly the leaves appeared and even the green figs, but they are as hard as rocks. I picked one ripe fig this month, and it almost felt like a victory.

I spoke too soon, after writing this post, I went to the garden to water the tomatoes in the greenhouse and found another ripe fig.

Having no home-grown figs doesn't stop me from buying them, they are sold at reasonable prices at this time of the year.
Last evening, when we had dinner with our guests, I served this side dish of roast butternut squash with figs (to go with the roast duck).

Ingredients:
1 medium butternut squash
1 sweet onion
3 figs
1 fennel bulb
2tbsp olive oil
1tbsp orange saffron oil
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp honey
(serves 4 as a side dish)

Cut the butternut squash lengthwise, leave the skin on, wrap in the foil and place in the oven preheated to 180C. Do the same with the sweet onion and fennel. In half an hour, take them out of the oven, remove the skin from the butternut squash pieces with a knife, place them in a deep tray with the onion, fennel and sliced figs.
Mix the olive oil, orange saffron oil, balsamic vinegar and honey in a small container and pour the contents over the vegetables and fruit, mix well, using your hands. Place the tray back in the oven and roast for 20-25 minutes. Serve hot.

 

 

Figs feature as this month's ingredient in One Ingredient Challenge for September. This challenge it is hosted by Working London Mummy and How to Cook Good Food blogs.

 

 

Crostata with figs soaked in marsala

Whenever we visited Ferrara, my husband's hometown, my mother-in-law would buy a crostata with jam from a local pasticceria.
There are many of them in town, and each has their own favourite crostata on offer. Some of these places are very small and are run by a family, so everything looks and tastes just like "Nonna used to make".
And there are grand places to visit for a sweet treat as well, for example, pasticceria Leon d'Oro, which is placed right in the middle of Ferrara, you can sit there, have a leisurely coffee, stuff yourself with wonderful pastries and watch the crowds visiting the town centre.

The beautiful watercolour of Leon D'Oro above is reproduced with the kind permission of Roberto Cariani. That's Ferrara, romantic and poetic, a true gem of the Northern Italy.

We haven't visited Italy since Eddie was born, but Sasha loved the pasticceria, and we used to go there daily for our elevenses. The choice of pastries is amazing, and you can have a slice of crostata if you fancy a jammy treat.

I have been looking for good recipes of crostata, and found one that I liked the sound of.
My recipe is based on Meg Rivers' recipe Fig & Marsala crostata published in Meg Rivers Home Baking, with a few changes. She adds fennel seeds to the pastry, which I'm sure takes this dish to the next level of sophistication.

First of all, I should confess that I used a roll of ready-made chilled Jus-Rol shortcrust pastry. I know I would have been crucified and vilified on Come and Dine with me, but I don't care. I had guests coming for lunch, and not much time.

Ingredients:
1 pack of JusRol short crust pastry (or make your own pastry by all means)
500g dried figs
1 decent glass of marsala (about 300ml+)
2 tbsp vanilla sugar (MR opts for 3 tbsps of dark sugar, but figs are sweet enough, I think next time I bake this crostata, I'll try to skip sugar altogether)
1 tbsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tbsp nutmeg

You have to prepare the filling ahead of the baking session. Soak the chopped figs in the marsala wine in a small pan. If you don't have marsala, I think sweet port or sherry could be another option. Or any strong sweet wine indeed. Add the vanilla sugar and spices. Bring the pan to the boil and cook over low heat, stirring regulalry, until the filling has reduced by about a half. This might take about 30-40 minutes. Once relatively cool, blitz the mixture with a hand blender. It has to be a thick paste, not a smoothie, so don't overdo it.
Preheat the oven to 180C.
Roll out the pastry in the pie dish, slightly buttered in advance. Trim the edges and save some pastry for the lattice on top. Bake the empty shell for 10 minutes, take the dish out of the oven and spoon the fig filling in, smooth it  with a spoon. Cut the remaning shortcrust pastry into ribbons and make a lattice. Bake for another half an hour at 180C until the pastry is golden.
Serve hot with custard or cream. I think the Greek yogurt could be a lovely alternative, or even a good serving of vanilla ice cream.
It is tasty the next day too, you can either eat it cold, or reheat it in the oven.