Fig bruschetta recipe that is outstanding!
While running errands my wife and I found ourselves close to Whole Food so we pulled in the parking lot just to see if anything caught our eye. Near the front of the produce section was fresh mission figs. How do you pass up fresh, beautiful, dark, delicious figs?!?!? Well, you don't, so I bought figs with no plans on what to make with them.
I'm sure that I was driving my wife crazy on the trip home talking about what I could make with the figs we just purchased. During my stream of conciousness non-stop talking I mentioned making some bruschetta with the figs. We could eat bruscetta with every meal along with replacing nearly every meal with bruscetta. After working through ideas of how to use the figs to make a bruscetta I came up with the idea to make a Roasted Fig and Ricotta Bruscetta with a Honey & Orange Liquer.
I set my oven to 400 to preheat then quartered the larger figs and cut the smaller figs into thirds. In a shallow baking dish I tossed the figs in a couple teaspoons of olive oil just to keep them from sticking, sprinkled on a small pinch of salt, then baked them for 10 minutes. Baking the figs does two things: it softens them up a bit and activates the natural sugars making them even more sweet.
When I make a tomato bruscehtta, chicken liver pate bruschetta and other bruscettas I will brush the slices of baguette with olive oil then toast the bread. I didn't want the olive oil to cut the sweetness of this bruscetta so I skipped brushing olive oil on the bread this time. I used my trusty Graticola pan that my wife bought for me as a gift to quickly toast the bread. If you do not have a Graticola pan then I strongly suggest you search Google as soon as you've finished reading this posting.
This brushetta needed something to take it up a notch, it needed a drizzle. I grabbed honey that we had purchased from a local bee keeper and poured about 1/4 cup or so in a small saucepan. I let the honey warm over medium heat then added a tablespoon of orange liquer. The mix of honey and orange with the figs and ricotta turned out to be a match made in heaven!
We smeared a bit of ricotta each slice of bread and added two - four sections of fig. Finally, I poured the magical honey orange liquer drizzle over the bruschetta. We devoured the bruschetta until we felt glutenous! This recipe was definitely a winner!
About halfway through preparing this bruschetta I thought to myself, "I should have recorded this for an episode of POV Italian Cooking!!!!" So, don't look for this one on video, I was so excited to eat this dish that setting up my lights and getting my cameras out didn't even cross my mind.
INGREDIENTS
1 pound figs
2 teaspoons olive oil
Small pinch of salt
Ricotta cheese
Baguette, sliced diagonally
1/4 cup honey
1 tablespoon orange liquer
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees
2. Quarter larger figs, cut smaller figs in half or into thirds
3. In a shallow baking dish toss the figs in 2 teaspoons of olive oil. Sprinkle with a small pinch of salt.
4. Toast baguette slices in oven or using Graticola pan
5. Heat honey in a small saucepan over medium heat.
6. When honey starts to heat up, add 1 tablespoon of orange liquer and wisk over heat.
7. Spread ricotta on toasted bread, add roasted figs, drizzle with honey & orange liquer
8. ENJOY UNTIL GLUTENOUS!
