Upside-Down Pear

One of the recipes in my last post called for pomegranate molasses. Depending on where you live, this might be annoying to find. Here are some options!

1. If you have a local Middle Eastern grocery or deli, check there. Mine is the Alwadi brand. Sometimes, other brands are called pomegranate syrup. Check the ingredients; it should have pomegranate juice and perhaps citric acid in it, not much else.
2. If you have access to a source of real grenadine — NOT colored corn syrup! — guess what real grenadine is? …yep, pomegranate syrup, with extra sugar in it. If you use this, cut the amount of sugar in the khoresht-e fesanjan
3. If you have no Middle Eastern grocery around, and no source of real grenadine, check your regular supermarket for pomegranate juice. You can cook it down into syrup; again, if you do this, cut the amount of sugar in the fesanjan.

Kim left a comment on my last post, asking about the recipe for the fig tart.

I was down in the Strip District on Saturday morning, and was sucked into Sunseri’s by a sign advertising fresh figs. There was about 3/4 of a flat in the cooler, so I appropriated it and headed for the checkout — and was promptly intercepted by a cigar-chomping gentleman who asked did I want a whole flat instead?

Yes. Yes I did.

I wanted to make a fig tart. I’d seen a bunch of recipes calling for whole or halved fresh figs in a custard over the past few years, and I was in a mood to make one.

Aside from the figs, I didn’t purchase anything else to make the tart — so I had to cobble things together a bit, adapting recipes to what I had around. I knew that I didn’t want to make a rolled pie crust, in this heat, and I had no sour cream, yogurt, soft cheese….

The crust for this tart is adapted from Fresh Fig Tart with Rosemary Cornmeal Crust and Lemon Mascarpone Cream:

Crust

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup yellow cornmeal (not stone-ground)
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 stick (1/2 cup) cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
• 1 teaspoon finely chopped dried rosemary
• 1 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 4 to 5 tablespoons ice water

(I’m just altering their instructions for what I actually did. I only wrote bits of the crust instructions below.)

Pulse together flour, cornmeal, sugar, rosemary, black pepper, and salt in a food processor. Add butter and pulse until mixture resembles coarse meal with pea-sized butter lumps. (I always have to scrape down the sides of my processor bowl with a spatula when I do this.)

Drizzle evenly with 4 tablespoons ice water and pulse until just incorporated. Gently squeeze a small handful: If it doesn’t hold together, add more water, 1/2 tablespoon at a time, pulsing after each addition and continuing to test.

Press dough evenly onto bottom and up sides of pie or tart pan with floured fingers. Chill or freeze crust until firm, about 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 400°F.

Bake crust in middle of oven until center and edges are golden, 25 to 30 minutes (don’t worry if bottom of crust cracks).

So that was my crust.

Next, filling. I found a recipe for Fresh Fig Tart with Orange Flower Custard, and I liked the flavor combination, but I didn’t have the ingredients for that filling. I did have orange extract, cream, and milk — what I was looking for now was a fig tart with a cream or milk custard, to cut down on guesswork on the cooking time. Almond-Crusted Fig Tart: Crostata di Fichi Mandorlati fit the bill.

…of course, I didn’t have enough cream…

Filling

• 14 fresh black figs
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 1 cup milk
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 tsp orange extract
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tablespoon confectioners’ sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tablespoons turbinado sugar

Preheat oven to 375°F.

Wash figs, trim off the stems, and halve them.

Beat the eggs, and combine with the cream, milk, black pepper, orange & vanilla extracts, confectioner’s sugar, and salt.

Arrange fig halves in the crust, the pour the custard around them — don’t try to cover the figs.

Sprinkle the top with turbinado sugar, then bake for 25 minutes, or until the center is nearly set (for me, it actually took about 40 minutes, but the air conditioner was blowing directly on the oven).

Cool on the counter. If using a tart pan, let cool at least 15 minutes before removing the pan to let it cool the rest of the way.

I love winter, and the accompanying citrus: the boxes of clementines, the tangerines my mother used to slip in our Christmas stockings, the blood oranges.

I prefer my blood oranges with just a bare touch of red to their skins, and deep maroon-red flesh, soft and delicate, juicy enough to stain my fingers when I pull the segments apart.

I love figs, though I didn’t always. Like a lot of people, my main fig experience as a child was Fig Newtons. Now, there is nothing wrong with Fig Newtons, but they do not exactly inspire one to go out and try fresh figs. I don’t know anyone who bit into a Fig Newton and was so struck by the flavor of the filling that they went fig-crazy; much more likely was that the person ate Fig Newtons because they were out of Oreos.

Now, I look forward to the brief times of the year when I can get beautiful fresh figs. Around here, I mostly see Black Mission figs and Calmyrna figs. Of the two, I prefer the green Calmyrnas: I like their softly burred exteriors and pretty amber-colored insides; I like their honeylike scent and the way they sit at the bottom of my cupped palm. I am fond of foods that seem to have secrets, and figs are the most secretive fruit I know.

Fig Salad with Chevre and Pine Nuts
This salad tastes a bit of balsamic vinegar at first, and then the chevre/pine nut flavor comes through, and it finishes off with the fig taste. If you use too much vinegar, that’s all you’ll taste, so be careful!

Recipe makes enough for two people as a side dish.

• 6 ripe Calmyrna figs
• handful of pine nuts
• 1-2 oz. chevre (goat cheese)
• balsamic vinegar
• extra-virgin olive oil (preferably a fruity one, not a peppery one)

Toast pine nuts, and let cool.

Peel the figs, and cut each fig into 10-or-so pieces. The pieces should be a bit smaller than bite-size. Put the fig pieces into a bowl.

Crumble chevre over figs, and add the cooled pine nuts.

Drizzle with a little olive oil and some balsamic vinegar, just enough to coat the ingredients, and toss gently.