recipeworld

I used to really, really hate the combination of sweet and salty. Sweet should be dessert, salty should be in the meal. Salt caramel, duck à l’orange, sweet peanut butter with Thai noodles… all of these these combinations that I now love were completely off limits.

It took a pretty extraordinary cheese plate to change my mind. The cheese course at Napa restaurant Tra Vigne features several delicious cheeses along with whole honeycomb and blueberry preserves. Something about the presentation, the fact that I had just tried lentils for the first time in my life and loved them, and the fact that the whole cheese plate came on a lovely marble slab and just looked so appealing made me venture to try it: a little bit of goat’s cheese with some of the fresh honeycomb on walnut bread… and I was hooked.

Now I love to mix sweet and salty. Some of my favorite salads venture into this realm, combining honey and warm goat’s cheese, like I did that first day, or ham with dried fruit. I love this salad, which combines sweet figs and honey in the dressing with salty prosciutto and gorgonzola cheese.

Fig, Gorgonzola and Prosciutto Salad

Assemble the salad ingredients on a plate. Put all of the dressing ingredients in a jar (except the olive oil) and shake to combine. Whisking with a fork, stir the dressing while pouring the olive oil in in a thin stream. Dress the salad and serve immediately. 

Figs are in season at the beginning of fall/end of summer, but I wanted to post this recipe from my archives now. This was one of the first recipes I invented all on my own: I was looking to make a dessert that showed off the sweetness of figs without overpowering their distinct flavor. The plating can be done as shown, or with two per plate for a more dainty dessert for company. The sauces can also be served on the side if you wish.

Mascarpone Figs

4 Mission figs
1 tbsp. honey
1 tbsp. fig jam
½ tsp dried mint
½ tsp black pepper
¼ cup mascarpone cheese
¼ cup fromage frais or plain whole-milk yogurt

Slice the figs from the top of the stem down to about a half-centimeter from the base. Rotate 180 degrees and slice again so that the figs are still whole, but have four distinct sections. Pull the sections apart. Place the figs in a skillet and cover. Heat over low heat until the figs are just heated through.

Meanwhile, combine the fig jam with an equal part of water in a saucepan until it melts to a sauce consistency. Add the mint and pepper to the honey.

Combine the mascarpone and fromage frais or yogurt.

To plate as shown, place the mascarpone mixture in four equal portions at the four corners of a plate. Place a fig in each dollop of the mascarpone mixture. Drizzle both the fig sauce and the honey sauce on the plate. Serve warm.