PHOTOGRAPHS MAJA SMEND FOOD STYLING SOPHIE AUSTEN-SMITH STYLING TONY HUTCHINSON
what’s good now.
STAR OF THE SEASON
“Chopped and tossed through a salad or baked into a pudding, figs are a sweet or savoury late-summer treat. If you can get hold of the leaves, you can be creative with those too: infuse them in warm milk to make fragrant custard, ice cream and pannacotta. Here I’ve used figs’ natural sweetness to balance creamy burrata cheese, salty pancetta and bitter radicchio for a summer pizza, and I’ve gently stewed them with orange liqueur for a boozy pudding that’ll take you back to balmy evenings in the Med.” SOPHIE AUSTEN-SMITH, DEPUTY FOOD EDITOR
WHAT TO LOOK FOR
With a colour that runs from deep purple to greeny brown, the perfect fig is plump, a little soft and deeply coloured with a slight fuzzy bloom. Avoid any with broken or damaged skins, as ripe figs are delicate and deteriorate easily. Once picked and packaged figs have a short shelf life, so store ripe ones in a paper bag in the fridge and eat within a day or two.
Fig, pancetta and burrata pizzas