Spring cleaning with a new look

I decided What the Fig was in dire need of a new look after four years (four?!).  I'm not 100% enamored with this template--while there are things that I love about it, namely the landing page with all the images laid out, there are features I wish I had more control over.  I'll keep it for now and see how I like it.  What do YOU think? 

Chocolate Pots de Creme

Spring is here!  I think the weather has finally made up its mind after several false starts, though every year it seems spring lasts for a week before blinkyoumissedit, the relentless heat and humidity of summer is upon the city.  So celebrate the end of the cold season with these chocolate pots de creme!  Just don't accidentally add more hot water to them than the recipe calls for.  At least, that's what I think I did.  Mine never gelled after a night in the fridge and was more chocolate sauce than anything, although the top quarter inch did firm up a bit after I stuck them under the broiler to caramelize the sugar.  They were still divine--you can't ruin anything with the addition of heavy cream!

Chicken Ragu with Zucchini Salad

There was a bit of tweaking that I made to this recipe, from the minor substitution of pecans for macadamias to taking out entirely the dill and spring onions.  BUT leaving out the vincotto was a big mistake; however, I couldn't justify dropping anywhere from $18-22 on a bottle.  I couldn't even make myself buy a bottle of cooked grape must, which is a cheaper alternative.  The sweetness of the vincotto would've balanced out the strong and rather overpowering flavor of the wine.  If you decide to forego this ingredient as well, definitely decrease the amount of wine when cooking.

Pear and Apple Phyllo Tarts

My brain has been in tart-mode these past few weeks, and in an effort to free up some space in the freezer, I decided to kill two birds with one stone and defrost some phyllo dough to make some tarts.  I kept things light with a few layers of phyllo and thin daubs of vanilla custard--a little goes a long way.  The one above contains slices of pear.
 

This one has apples.  I like this a lot more.  I was so surprised at how great they tasted, though I shouldn't be with the amount of butter that went into them.  The phyllo was perfectly flaky and buttery, and the fruit practically melts in your mouth.  The custard is the glue that holds everything together.

Chicken Soup with Roasted Purple Potatoes

The weather's been a bit finicky lately in NYC.  It was in the 50s today but in the 30s just a few days ago.  Go figure.  The weather may be warming up, but there's alway time for soup.

Chicken soup is a favorite comfort food, and it doesn't hurt that they're so easy to make.  I decided to roast the potatoes instead of boiling them in the soup because I didn't want the starch to thicken the soup.  Plus, roasted potato skin is delicious.

Milk Tart?

 

 

At long last, a dessert post!  Making a tart has been on my mind lately, and I originally planned on making something with fruit before I came across a recipe for a milk tart whilst flipping through my cookbooks for inspiration.  It's a classic South African dessert, and I thought I'd make something different from my usual fruit tarts.

Butternut Squash Bread

I had a butternut squash lounging around desperate to be transformed into something magical, but I didn't want to roast it or make a soup out of it.  I had some dill bread recently on a cookbook shoot and was so obsessed with it that I ended up making two loaves of my own.  As I was already fixated on bread, it seemed like the logical thing to do was to roast and puree the squash and transform it into a loaf of bread.  It turned out surprisingly well, fragrant with spices and lovely served toasted with some cream cheese and maple syrup.

Kale Salad

I'm having lots of fun playing around with Capture One, a RAW converter and photo editing software.  The image on the left is totally unprocessed while the one on the right has all of the adjustments I made using the software.  I love how easy it is to white balance and to make the colors pop!

Sweet Potato Gnocchi with Brown Butter Sauce and Fried Sage

So I've made this twice already and only realized last night as I was typing up the recipe that I'd misread the ingredients on Gourmet's site!  Twice.  The recipe calls for a total of two pounds of potatoes, but it was worded in such a confusing way that I ended up using half that.  It does explain why the gnocchi were a bit denser than I'd like, though.

Sugar Spiced Nuts

Happy New Year, you guys!  I hope everybody had a fantastic time over the holidays!  I had a nice, long visit with my family and completely lost my mind eating cookies, brownies, on sale holiday candies and chocolates.  I probably had more rice and noodles in the past two weeks than the last few months combined.  I was a woman possessed.  Nothing containing a smidgeon of carbs was safe from my bottomless maw, including these sugar spiced nuts.  These were so addictive it should be everybody's new year resolution to have a secret stash hidden in some dark kitchen cupboard.

David Leite's Rich Fish Soup

The first taste of this soup was so unexpectedly good that it startled an Mmm! from me.  The magic lies in the fish stock--or the lack of it, in my case.  Leite states that the fish stock will make or break the soup, so use a very light stock.  Anything too salty or overly fishy will overwhelm the other, more delicate flavors of the soup.  I never cared for it myself and used chicken broth instead.

And does anyone else get into a dither buying seafood, specifically, fish?  I live near Chinatown, and every block has a fish market or three.  My trouble is that the fish are all too often unlabeled, and I can tell salmon from flounder, but that's the extent of it.  I almost wimped out and bought a bag of frozen cod filets from Whole Foods, but at nearly $12/pound, I told myself to stop being an idiot.

Still, I visited six or seven markets before settling on an unidentified fish, which I got for a dollar and change, praying that it wasn't something with a million tiny bones--Baltic herring from that one memorable lunch in Turku, I'm looking at you.  I ended up dropping the whole fish into the soup and cooked one side with the heat still on before flipping it and cooking the rest with the residual heat.  It ended up great, but I think I'll still work myself into a lather the next time I visit a fish market.

Roasted Aubergine with Saffron Yogurt

This was not an easy dish to photograph.  My admiration to the food stylists who can make unwieldy chunks of fruit look palatable.  I actually decided to reshoot this a second time since I wasn't happy with the ones I did the previous day, which wasn't a pain at all since I got to eat and enjoy the salad again.

The geniuses at Ottolenghi have included some creative recipes in their cookbook, especially their salads.  I made a fennel, feta, and blood orange salad inspired by one of their recipes earlier this year, and this salad is just as bold in flavor.  Who would've thought that eggplants, pomegranates, and basil would equal magic?  The eggplant develops a rich, complex flavor whilst roasting that goes well with the garlicky yogurt and the explosions of sweet/tart from the pomegranate seeds.  The original recipe actually includes pine nuts, but I've decided to omit them because let's be honest: who can afford them these days?