For the annual Hillbilly Tapas party at Reverend Jack's, I went bacon-free for the first time. But once you go pig, it's hard to renege. My recipe called for:

2 cups (about 3 dozen) dried figs
3 clemintine oranges, juiced and zested
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 cup of water
1 cup firm to hard bleu cheese or gorgonzola
3 dozen roasted almonds
3 dozen biscuit rolls
3 dozen thin slices of prosciutto

Though I searched high and low – ok, just low – for fresh figs, all I could find were dried ones. No problem. In the same way I reanimate the corpses of my forebears, I knew I could return the dried figs to a semblance of their original, "little brown sac of goodness" vigor. I combined figs, the orange juice, zest, vanilla, brown sugar and water in a large pot on medium heat. After about ten minutes, they'd plumped right up.

Cutting the stems off of the figs, I also cut a slit lengthwise, about 2/3 of the length. Pushed a little nut into the slit. Warm and sticky. They slid in nicely. Put a little dollop of bleu over the opening, then wrapped the fig loosely in a thinly sliced prosciutto. The prosciutto, with the fig rolled inside, was about 2-1/2 inches wide. I broiled the prosciutto-wrapped figs, about 2 inches away from the flame, about 2 minutes a side, until the meat crisped just a bit.

Too lazy to make my own biscuit dough, I grabbed some cans of Pillsbury Buttermilk biscuits. Tugged on them a bit to make them more oval than round, and wrapped them around the crisp, firm, meat. Rolled the dough between my thumb and index finger to seal it together. A little bit of the meat hung out from either side, as intended.

Another 12 minutes in a 400 degree oven, and they were nice and golden brown. Flaky, too. But the credit must go to the dough boy for that.

Dilf didn't like them. He has a problem with nuts in his mouth. Nick had no such complaint. Hmm. By the way, Nick rocks a mean Melodica. And Mister Importantness' home brewed shoe polish and hooch has the delightful effect of making Ubie forget the french lyrics to "Psycho Killer." That's her story, anyway.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 09, 2007 at 1:09 PM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.