Of Pasta & Figs

I love the transition between Summer and Autumn possibly most of all of any of the other season’s handovers. It’s perhaps no coincidence then that this ephemeral, twilight period is when figs drop auspiciously into shops, causing my heart to go all a flutter due to their fleeting seasonal window. As a rule it’s best to ignore those found in supermarkets, dumbed down and packaged sorrowfully to within an inch of their extended, flavour curtailed shelf life. Head instead to places that aren’t scared to stock rudely ripe fruit that’s close to busting out of it’s skin, droplets of juice oozing from heavy bottoms, begging to be eaten and casting in their wake a pale, damned shadow on their clinically packed cousins. Find them in proper old school markets, food centres (there’s a Turkish one near me that’s good) and even good old Lidl; the best will have to be gorged on the way home, for they’d never survive the paper bag journey, turning quickly to purple and crimson mush.

Fig season, this year, coordinated rather well with my learning how to make pasta. Well, you can probably see where this is going right? Here’s a couple of recipe simple ideas that I can heartily recommend.

Simply boil pasta for around 4-5 minutes until al dente, remove from the saucepan and drain. Meanwhile, cut figs into slices of eighths and grill for a few minutes to release their juices.

Add a lump of n’duja to the pan in order to warm through and melt a little, then return the pasta and toss with the torn mozzarella and basil leaves and three quarters of the grilled figs.

Add the remainder of the figs to serve as they’ll have retained their shape more pleasingly than those that have been smooched with the pasta mess. Season with plenty of cracked black pepper.

Gorgonzola, fig and cacao nibs – I like that this is a delicate balance between sweet and savoury; the creamy but piquant gorgonzola has enough saltiness to win the tussle though.

As before, boil pasta for around 4-5 minutes then drain, meanwhile grill the eighthed figs lightly.

Return the pasta to the pan, add a large chunk of broken up gorgonzola, a knob of butter, seasoning and most of the figs, then toss to coat.

Finish with the remaining pieces of fig and scatter across the cacao nibs.

Oh, and here’s a cheeky little toastie. Well, just because; who doesn’t love a toastie? N’duja, lincolnshire poacher & sliced fig; it was GOOD.

You might also like: Greengage, Cobnut and Stem Ginger Cake