Cooking class #2--Figs

Today's class was all about fresh figs, a fruit now ripe and available at the market and in the grocery stores. I was on my own with my instructor so we got through 4 different recipes. We started with making a fig chutney, made of onions, figs, brown sugar (or honey), spices and red wine and raspberry vinegars.

We moved on to pannacotta, the easiest dessert to make if company decides to show up on short notice. Basically, it requires crème liquide (whipping cream), brown sugar and gelatine (we used agar-agar). We added carmelized figs when the pannacotta had solidified in the fridge.

Something totally new for me was cooking a magret de canard--fillet of duck or duck breast. The butcher did quite a nice job of pre-slicing it, so all we had to do was add a 5-spice rub and sear it on both sides for about 7 minutes (rare) to release the fat. Some of the fat (which is what you see in the pan) is kept to make a sweet and sour fig sauce. Shallots are sautéed in a couple of tablespoons of duck fat to which diced figs and 1 apple are added, as well as a some salt and pepper and some 5-spice rub. To this some honey (or brown sugar) is added and then everything gets deglazed with some wine or the juice of 1/2 an orange. Finally 3 "cap-fulls" (yes, this was the measurement) of a sweet wine are added (we used Noilly-Prat). I imagine a sweet sherry would work. The sauce is left to cook down a bit and then served with the duck. Okay, this may be far too many details. I served the duck and fig sauce with some couscous and zucchini ribbons and loved it!

We ended the morning by making a fig gratin--a little like a clafouti, if you know what that is, except that this dessert had fewer eggs, and also had ground almonds and sliced almonds on the top. Raw fig are sliced and placed in the containers (about 1 fig per dish) and then a mixture of sugar, eggs, flour, ground almonds and butter is poured over the figs. Baked for 15 minutes and the dessert is finished. I tasted some when I came home and think I would have sprinkled a bit of sugar over the figs before adding the topping. Otherwise, a very nice fruit dessert.