Fig Dessert
İncir Tatlısı
I wrote a little about dried fruit in Turkish culture before while telling about dried figs. We love eating it so much as plain, but I made something sweeter today. I know summer is very close and we’re going to have fresh figs soon, but I couldn’t wait until mid August, when we start to see figs at open markets. So when we still have time, I wanted to use the last dried figs in my pantry. But I must admit my friend’s effect on my decision to make fig dessert today. She loves desserts so much that she always craves for something sweet just after having lunch or dinner. And a cup of tea is an indispensable mate for her dessert.
We decided to have lunch at home together. We quickly prepared menemen (an easy dish of eggs, tomatoes and peppers) and enjoyed it with cacik (a cold soup of yogurt and cucumber). But I wanted to make a surprise for her by this fig dessert. As it’s very easy to make, she didn’t have to wait long for a cup of tea and a portion of dessert. It was the first time for her to have this dessert, but she enjoyed it so much that she got my word to make it again.
Ingredients
-Â Â Â 20 dried figs
-Â Â Â A little pounded clove
-    ½ cup walnut, cut into four
-Â Â Â 1 cup water
-Â Â Â 1 cup sugar
Wash and clean the figs and soak them in hot water for about 20 minutes.
Drain the figs and insert your little finger to its bottom to make the hole bigger. You’ll fill the figs with walnuts through this hole. Place two or three big pieces of walnut into these figs.
Lay the filled figs in a pot, their stems look upward.
Add clove, sugar and water. Cook it on low heat until it reaches the right consistency for about half an hour.
You can serve it with a dollop of ice cream. As we didn’t have any ice cream today, we ate our dessert plain.
Fig Tree
I want to give another benefit of figs, which I forgot to mention in “dried fig” post. When you pick a leaf or the fruit itself from its tree, you see a white liquid just like milk dripping from it. If you happen to drop that liquid on your body, itching is inevitable for you. So you should be careful if you have that chance of eating figs from the tree. However, there is a secret of this white liquid, which you may find weird. It is a great treatment for wart on skin. If you have any warts on your body, drop a few driblets of “fig milk” on it, you will see a clear recovery on your skin in a few days time. I took this photo last month for those who have never seen a fig tree. These figs are unripe, and we expect them to ripen in August.
Before grilling any vegetable, pierce it with knife or fork, then put it in oven/on grill. This way, it cooks better.
Leesie on Mon, 18th May 2009 5:58 pm
This looks FAN-tastic! I would love to try this recipe as it is something really different for me. I like figs very much!
I enjoyed the story about the fig milk, very interesting and good to know.
jenn on Mon, 18th May 2009 7:50 pm
I really need to start eating fig more often. You may have just convinced me of that. Looks really good.
JMom on Mon, 18th May 2009 8:55 pm
I’ll have to remember the fig milk on warts next time!
I wonder if this will work with fresh figs? Our neighbor has a tree and she always shares the bounty with us.
Tangled Noodle on Wed, 20th May 2009 9:29 pm
These walnut-stuffed figs look wonderful and for such an simple recipe! I love the idea of serving this with ice cream. Your information about the sap of the fig tree makes me think of other foods from plants with such mechanisms like nettles and cashews (the sap from the stem can apparently blister the skin quite terribly). It should tell how good these foods are that the people who first found out about these ill-effects still persisted in eating them!
OysterCulture on Thu, 21st May 2009 6:55 am
I love figs, not so much growing up as I thought they only existed in Fig Newtons, which I was not too fond of. This dish sounds spectacular. Fresh figs are incredible as well as incredibly versatile. I made something similar and served it with a creme fraiche ice cream and I can tell you it was amazingly refreshing. This dessert with a cup of tea and a good book, I see a perfect afternoon in my future.
lisaiscooking on Thu, 21st May 2009 10:54 am
Figs are so delicious, and stuffed with walnuts they’d be a great dessert! Sounds fantastic with ice cream too.
Zerrin on Thu, 21st May 2009 11:39 am
Leesie- fig milk was a surprise for me too when I learnt its benefit.
Jenn- You should definitely eat more figs if you hate drinking milk. It has the same calcium as milk.
JMom- I’ve never tried this with fresh figs. If you try, please share with us.
Tangled Noodle- It is really so easy to make. So we call it “sap”. Thank you for this. I couldn’t find the right word in the dictionary. It’s really interesting to find such helpful things in nature. There was a quotation: Nature has both the poison and its antidote.
OysterCulture- This can be my dream too. Fig dessert, tea, book and a tree to sit under.
Lisa- I think walnuts and dried figs go very well together.
Sophie on Fri, 22nd May 2009 11:39 pm
MMMMM..what a lovely fig dessert, Zerrin! Looks delectable!
Kevin on Tue, 26th May 2009 6:08 pm
Nut stuffed figs sound really good!
Natasha on Thu, 28th May 2009 9:21 pm
Me too, I can’t wait for figs this summer! I had them for the first time a few years ago after moving to the US and they quickly became my favorite summer fruit. I also like the dried ones. This recipe looks exotic yet simple; I must try it.
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Cheers!
Unripe Fig Jam | Give Recipe on Sat, 20th Jun 2009 4:39 pm
[...] mentioned the benefit of unripe fig sap in the recipe of dried fig dessert. That sticky white liquid is helpful in the treatment of skin warts. Just drop it on the wart and [...]