Plum & Fig Jam ..... Naan Bread

Not both on the same plate - although I don't see why it can't be done, with the right ingredients in either!


The Plum & Fig Jam came about because of a gift of six figs from Willie - who comments on the blog regularly - and a lack of opportunity to use them in a dessert before they became too ripe to use.

I wanted the jam to have a good colour and had three plums which had seen better days, so combined the two fruits.

Here you see it adorning a little bowl of natural yoghurt - a princely dessert, prepared at a moment's notice.  We've since found that it is exceptionally good on Cornish Ice Cream, too!

Now next, we have hubby's second go at Naan Bread.  This one, instead of having cumin seeds in the dough, had Kalonji (also known as Nigella or black onion seeds) in the dough.  The Kalonji gave the dough a really authentic flavour and these were by far the best Naan he's produced yet.

I think we're both agreed that they could have done with a little more colour from an aesthetic point of view, but they didn't appear to lose anything by way of flavour.

Their soft fluffiness is infinitely preferable to the hard, dry old things you get in the supermarket.

Baked Figs

One of the many delights that this time of year affords, is that of the ripe fig.

I find them such tactile little creatures, so velvety soft and almost warm to the touch.  They look so robust, yet you know that you have to treat them gently or they will instantly submit to heavy handling and spill their juicy contents all over whatever happens to be nearest (and usually, that is something that could well do without the addition of fig juice).

Upon hearing the word on the grapevine which said that Lidl were selling them at an extraordinarily reasonable price, we came home from Asda on a route calculated to take us past the doorstep of our local Lidl without adding any further miles per gallon.  Cunning, eh?

Here they are, the six gorgeous plump little people.  Excuse the camera shake, it's just that I was so excited ....


Don't you just love their little paper cups?

I found a recipe online for baked figs which gave me an idea of what temperature and for how long, and winged it thereafter.  I can recommend the results, ooooh yes.

BAKED FIGS

Ingredients :

4-6 fresh figs
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground allspice
several teaspoons of runny honey (to taste, basically)
juice of half a lemon.

Method :

1.  Remove the stalks from the figs, using a sharp knife.  Then, cut them almost in half, then into quarters, but don't cut all the way through so that they still retain their shape and place into a baking dish.  I foil lined my dish, to make washing up easier!

Looking glamorous, ready to go in the oven

2.  Give them a squeeze from the bottom, forcing the seeds up so that they open rather like a flower.

3.  Sprinkle over the cinnamon and allspice, then trickle over the honey and lemon juice.

4.  Cook in a pre-heated oven at 220deg C for 20 mins.

5.  If required to wait, take the four corners of the foil lining to the baking dish and gather them loosely above the heads of the figs, retaining some warmth but allowing the steam to escape.  That way, they won't dry out and will be as luscious as when you removed them from the oven.

Serve with lashings of double cream.  Again, sorry for camera shake - anticipation got the better of me.