One of the things I fell in love with at our new home in the Marlborough Sounds, was the huge fig tree at the end of the deck. By the end of summer it was completely covered in masses and masses of figs. I had dreams about all the things I was going to do with kilos of ripe, luscious figs come autumn; if I could keep the possums and birds off them as they ripened. But before I could do something about pest-control, an overnight heavy rain put paid to my plans. The weight of the figs and the rain was too much for the tree, and it had split completely in half. I spent the morning picking the green unripe figs off the branches that were lying all over the ground in a broken mess, and then went about researching how to ripen them off the tree. I still had images of figs wrapped in prosciutto and tart tartine with fig and local honey. It turns out, that if they haven’t started to ripen before you pick them, they never will. So back to the drawing board for uses for green figs, with ideas of poached dessert figs still in my mind.

I ended up with 2 suggestions for ways to process the green figs so that they didn’t end up tasting like unripe bitterness. So I tried both. One involved soaking in salt water before poaching. The other, a longer process of boiling and squeezing the figs to extract the bitterness. This process took quite a while as you have to gently squeeze each individual fig, twice. But it provides some hilarity as some of the figs squirt their juice across the kitchen. And I have to say, this process gave the better flavoured figs!

Turkish Poached Figs

1 kg green figs

1 kg sugar

5½ cups water

6 green cardamom pods (slightly crushed)

2 teaspoons rosewater

Juice of 1 lemon

 

Wash the figs and clean their stems. Bring a big pot of water to the boil. Put the figs in for about 10 minutes. Drain the figs and let them cool.

When the figs are cool enough to handle, squeeze them gently to remove the bitter juices. They will look deflated and wrinkly but don’t worry.  Then fill the pot with water again, boil again and squeeze again. This squeezing part might take a long time, but it is worth it.

Meanwhile you can start to boil 5 ½ cups of water and the sugar together in a different pot. When it reaches boiling, add the squeezed figs to the pot. The figs will turn back into their original shape and lose their wrinkly look. Add the green cardamom pods and the rose water. Boil for about 25 minutes. Finally, add the lemon juice and boil for 5 minutes more.

Put the figs into sterilized jars and add the syrup to cover. You may need to keep them refrigerated. Eat with whipped cream or yoghurt.

Ginger & Clove Poached Figs

250g Salt

water

1kg figs

7 cups sugar

Juice of two lemons

5 pieces of preserved  ginger, cut into slices

10 whole cloves

Dissolve the salt in enough water to cover the  figs in a bucket. Soak the figs overnight in the bucket of salt water. The next morning  rinse the  figs and cut an X in the bottoms of each one. Bring a pot of water to the boil and add the figs. Let them boil for 10 minutes and then drain them.

Mix equal parts water and sugar in the pot (approximately 7cups water and 7 cups white sugar). Boil for 20 minutes and  then add the figs, lemon juice, cloves and ginger.  Boil for approx. 2 hours (until the syrup thickens). Leave cooked figs to soak overnight. In the morning pop the figs in sterilized jars with enough syrup to cover. Keep refrigerated.