Figs – sweet, fragrant, juicy and ideally consumed sun-warmed and straight from the tree – are surely one oflife's finest fruity pleasures. If we spend a summer holiday in the Med, I devour them greedily as often as I can. A few years ago in Mallorca, whenever we were driving around, we kept spotting trees beside the road fat with ripe figs. We'd pull over and jump out with the kids, all of us eating as many as we could like an eager, flip-flopped flock of ravenous birds, before piling back into the car full, sticky, happy.
In truth, the figs we get here will never be quite so sweet. Whether we buy imported ones, which are picked when not quite ripe, ready for transportation, or grow our own, they rarely have the syrupy, winey intensity of the ones we enjoy on holiday. They need a little more coaxing than their southern cousins, but it's worth the trouble, because they are enormously versatile. They can be roasted or poached, potted, made into compote, baked in pies and pastries, or turned into jams and chutneys. They team up very well with a wide variety of other ingredients, too: try them with honey, yoghurt, toasted nuts and fresh young goat's cheeses, certainly, but they'll also hold their own with stronger stuff such as salty prosciutto, punchy, tangy blue cheeses and even anchovies.
Figs, like so many other delicious things, were brought to Britain by the Romans. Strictly speaking, they're not really a fruit at all, rather a cluster of more than a thousand tiny flowers that blossom unseen beneath the silky skin and then go on to produce the "fruitlets", or seeds. In fact, figs are a host of contradictions. Their glossy, shapely leaves – as every child who ever went on a school tripto an art gallery knows – are associated with modesty, because they cover the blushes of many a classical statue. And yet the luscious, succulent "fruit" itself is provocatively, fleshily, immodestly sexy.
If you're tempted to grow your own, you need to work around our climate. First, pick the most suitable varieties. Brown Turkey is probably the most widely grown fig in this country, and it's certainly a good cropper, but its fruit aren't the best in a less-than-stellar summer. Instead, try Rouge de Bordeaux, which produces delicious, small, purple fruits, or White Marseilles, which has a good, sweet flavour, asdoes the relatively new white variety, Excel. Petite Nigra produces small dark, tasty figs, and it seems togrow quite contentedly in a pot, ifyou're short of space. If you have trouble locating some of the more interesting figs at a nursery near you, try readsnursery.co.uk in Suffolk, which supplies trees mail order.
Next, it's important to plant them in the right spot – basically the best sun trap you can find. The sheltered warmth of a south-facing wall will make the most of what sun we do have. Plant your tree in rich, well-drained soil, and it's important to restrict the root growth a bit if you want to avoid lots of green leaf growth and encourage fruiting. Dothis either by sinking the tree into the soil in a large pot – at least 70cm in diameter – or by creating asort ofsubterranean planting pit with rubble in the bottom for good drainage and old paving slabs around the sides. In spring, mulch generously with well-rotted manure, and water regularly in the growing season, to encourage lots of juicy, fat fruit. If you have asmall garden, fig trees can be grown either in the ground or in pots as bushes, half standards or fan-trained. If it's not possible to bring them inside, protect pot-grown specimens with horticultural fleece or straw during the worst of the winter.
If you're buying figs, they don't ripen further after picking, so look for ones that are soft and plump like a cheek, avoid any with splits in the skin and eat as soon as possible, because they don't keep well.
Fig tart
Almonds and figs go wonderfully together in this tart. Serves eight.
For the crust
350g plain flour, sifted
A pinch of salt
175g unsalted butter, plus a little more for greasing the tin
100g icing sugar, sifted
3 egg yolks, lightly beaten
Zest of a lemon
For the filling
200g unsalted butter, softened
200g caster or vanilla sugar, plus 2tbsp extra
4 eggs, lightly beaten
250g ground almonds
50g plain flour
12-14 figs, top of the stems trimmed, cut lengthways into quarters or eighths, depending on size
Icing sugar, for dusting (optional)
To make the pastry, pulse together the flour, salt and butter in a food processor until they resemble coarse breadcrumbs. Add the sugar, then the egg yolks and lemon zest, and pulse until just combined and pulling away from the edge of the bowl – add a splash of iced water only if necessary. Wrap in clingfilm and chill for at least an hour.
Heat the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4. Lightly grease a deep, loose-bottomed, 28cm flan tin and coarsely grate in the pastry. Press the pastry evenly into the sides and base. Chill for 15 minutes. Line with greaseproof paper and baking beans or dried pulses, and blind bake for 20 minutes. Remove the paper and beans, and bake for five to 10 minutes longer, until thebase is dried and slightly golden.Leave the shell to cool, andturn down the oven to 150C/300F/gas mark 3.
To make the filling, beat together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. In aseparate bowl, whisk together the almonds and flour. Beat the almond mixture into the butter mixture.
Spread the almond mix over the base of the cooled tart. Press in the figs in concentric circles, nestling their bottoms into the almond mixture so they point upwards. Sprinkle over remaining sugar. Bake for an hour to 75 minutes, until the centre is set and the tart is puffed up and golden. Dust with a little icing sugar, if you like, and serve warm or cold.
Figs poached in red wine
A simple, delicious pudding that's a great way of using less than perfectly ripe figs. Serves four to eight.
400ml red wine
Juice of 1 orange
1 strip each orange zest and lemon zest, pared with a vegetable peeler and any white pith removed
4 tbsp runny honey
1 vanilla pod, split
2 cloves
1 star anise
8 ripe figs, stalks trimmed
A knob of butter
Vanilla ice-cream or thick Greek yoghurt, to serve
Put the wine, orange juice, zest, honey, vanilla, cloves and star anise into a saucepan and simmer gently for five minutes.
Pierce the figs afew times with a co*cktail stick orthin skewer, to help the liquid penetrate the fruit, and carefully lower them into the simmering poaching liquid. Cook, partially covered, for 15-20 minutes, depending on their size, gently turning them over once or twice, until the skins are tender.
Remove the figs with a slotted spoon and transfer them to a bowl. Raise the heat and boil thesyrup until it's reduced and slightly thickened, then stir in the butter. Serve the figs hot or cold with aball of ice-cream or dollop of Greek yoghurt, and some of the sticky, syrupy juices spooned over the top.
Roasted figs with honey and ricotta
A great hasty pud. Roasting the figs with honey emphasises their perfumed sweetness. Serves six.
6 figs
6 tbsp honey
150g ricotta
50g thick Greek yoghurt
2 tbsp icing sugar
½ tsp vanilla extract or the seeds scraped from half a vanilla pod
Heat the oven to 200C/400F/gas mark 6. Cut an X into the top of each fig and squeeze gently to open it up. Trickle a little honey into each fig – reserve about half of it for serving – place in a tin and roast for 10-15 minutes, until hot and bubbling.
Beat the ricotta with the yoghurt, icing sugar and vanilla until smooth. Spoon some of the mixture into the top of each fig and trickle on some more honey just before serving.
