I Sugges this Recipes

Showing posts with label fig. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Fig Brulee with Burrata Cheese – Let’s Burn the Top of Some Fruit!

I love a crème brulee as much as the next portly chef, but when you consider the custard base is egg yolk-thickened, sweetened heavy cream, it’s not something you should be eating more than occasionally. But, why waste such a great technique when it can be applied to other things, like fresh fruit?

In the spirit of full disclosure, I chose figs here because I received a generous sampling from the California Fig Advisory Board, and decided this would be a wonderful way to enjoy them. As I mention in the video, this technique also works on fresh banana, a roasted peach or apple, and basically any tender fruit you can slice and sprinkle with sugar.

While this will work with white sugar, the Demerara sugar you see in the video seems to work best. It’s a type of raw brown sugar, and pretty much the same thing as you get in those little, brown “Sugar in the Raw” packages at the coffee shop. Let me be clear – I’m not suggesting you borrow a few of those to use for this recipe. That would be as illegal, as it would be free and convenient.

These were amazing with the fresh, creamy burrata, but any style cheese plate would benefit mightily from the shiny, sexy fruit. If cheese isn’t your thing, go grab a pint of vanilla ice cream, forget all about that sweet-savory thing, and just go full dessert.

Anyway, thanks to California Fig Advisory Board for inspiring the recipe, and if you want more info on how awesome figs are, you can check out their homepage here. I hope you give this a try soon. Enjoy!

View the complete recipe

Friday, January 24, 2014

Fig and Nut Boursin Croutes and a Giveaway

The world’s first variety of Boursin was created in 1957 in Normandy by Francois Boursin. Inspired by a long-standing traditional dish, fromage frais (fresh cheese), in which guests mixed their own seasoned cheese from a bowl of fine herbs, the expert cheese maker introduced Boursin Garlic & Fine Herbs. His recipe quickly became the first flavoured fresh cheese to be sold throughout France. Boursin was the height of sophistication in the 1970s and probably the first French cheese I tasted.

However, there is a new Boursin cheese which I have been asked to review: Boursin Fig and 3 Nuts or Figue et 3 Noix. This cheese is a combination of full tat soft cheese, fig nuggets, raisins, pecan nuts, walnuts and cashew nuts. Its not quite what I expected and took a little time and a few different tastings to work out whether I liked it or not. Its quite a sweet flavour, due to the figs and raisins, and I found it worked best on a sweetish wheaten cracker. It would also go well with a slice of apple.

As you may have gathered, if you are a regular reader of my blog, I tend to like to make something with items Im sent to review and Ive been pondering the best way to present this sweet cheese. In the end I went for quite a retro 70s style canape, the sort of thing my Mum would have served at a party, along with the cheese and pineapple on sticks! The crunchy bread croute was a great foil for the sweet cheese and I could just see them going down well with a glass of chilled fino sherry or a dry Sauvignon blanc.

Boursin Croutes

The instructions for this recipe are not precise, much depends on the size you make your croutes and how much filling you want to add. Would also be nice to top with a slice of fresh fig, or sliced, red skinned apple dipped in lemon juice. The croutes will keep for a few days in an airtight tin or box.

For the Croutes
Slices of white bread
Butter

1. Heat the oven to 180C
2. Cut the crusts off the bread, roll each slice flat with a rolling pin and, using cookie cutters, cut out circles of bread.
3. Melt the butter and brush both sides of each circle generously with the butter
4. Push down into tart tin. If the bread seems to be popping back out of the tin, roll up a piece of tin foil into a ball and push it on top of the bread.
5. Bake in the oven for about 15 minutes until golden brown (timing will vary depending on the thickness of your bread). Leave to cool.

For the filling
For every two croutes you will need:
1 tbsp Boursin Fig and 3 Nuts Cheese
1 tbsp low fat cream cheese
1/2 tsp lemon juice
2 pecan nuts

1. Beat the cream cheese and lemon juice until soft, add the Boursin Fig and 3 Nuts and mix through.
2. Using a Wilton 1M (large star) nozzle, fill a piping bag and pipe into the croutes.
3. Top each croute with a whole pecan nut.

Giveaway

If you would like to try Boursin Fig and 3 Nuts along with some of the other varieties of Boursin Cheese, the nice people at Boursin have a cool bag full of Boursin Cheeses to giveaway. Just follow the instructions below to enter:

a Rafflecopter giveaway