Early figs

I remember the first time I saw a fig. I was 16 and working at a buffet restaurant. It was a slow day and my Persian manager came through the door overly excited, bearing a huge bag of purple fruit. They were strange, almost alien to me - fat, squishy little things, with thick, silky skin. He was telling everyone about how figs are everywhere in the Mediterranean, but that he hadn't seen any since he moved here, and now his neighbor had shared some from the tree in his backyard. He sliced a few open and passed them around for people to try. We were all skeptical. In fact, I don't think anyone tasted one. "It looks like an inside out caterpillar", I said. "It looks like an inside out something", muttered the day manager. Eventually our boss gave up, grumbling things about how we were all crazy. It was years before I gave figs a chance - cautiously scattering them through a recipe that called for twice as much as I added. But one bite and I was hooked. Sadly it had been the end of fig season, or I would have used them on everything.

Figs are and end of summer fruit. This year as the trees have been filling out with green and stone fruits and baby squash have been increasing in abundance at the grocery store I have been excitedly anticipating the first figs of the year. So I was surprised when meandering through the aisles at Central Market I saw a stack of little plastic boxes overflowing with black mission figs. How did they sneak up on me so early?! After bringing them home and tasting a few I found that they still had a few green spots and were lacking the syrupy sweetness that figs have in August or September. So it isn't quite fig season yet after all. I hate to waste a whole container of figs, so I decided to roast them with honey to bring out their sweetness. This isn't exactly a summery tart, but the combination of sweet figs and caramelized onions with salty-sour chèvre and a hint of thyme is delicious enough to make me want to eat the whole thing in one sitting.



Fig and Onion Tart

1 sheet frozen puff pastry, thawed
2 table spoons butter
2-3 large onions, sliced thinly
a few springs of thyme, plus garnish
6-8 ripe figs, quartered
3oz chèvre
honey to drizzle
small handful of pine nuts

Melt butter in a large (not non-stick) skillet on medium-low heat and add onions. Stir occasionally, scraping browned onion from the bottom of the pan until onions are very soft and dark in color. Turn heat down if onions are crisping or browning too fast. This takes roughly 20 minutes. Towards the end, strip the leaves off of the thyme sprigs and crush lightly between fingers as you add them to pan. At this point you may add a little salt and pepper to taste if you like.

In a small skillet add a tiny amount of oil, and grease pan with paper towel. Heat to medium-high and add pine nuts, watching closely and shaking the skillet until they are browned. This takes only a minute.

Press puff pastry into one large, shallow tart pan, or several small tins. Spread onions evenly over the pastry. Then add figs and crumbles of chèvre across the top. Drizzle tart with honey and sprinkle on the pine nuts. Fold the edges of the pastry slightly around the tart.

Bake at 400°F for 15-20 minutes until the puff pastry is lightly browned. Garnish with thyme and eat hot.

xoxo

me