Fresh Fig, Apple & Date Dessert

This dessert is totally out of season now, but with such a low sugar content, only in the marzipan, I just couldn't resist posting it.

Sweet Mediterranean figs and dates combine especially well with crisp dessert apples to create this appetizing dessert. A hint of almond serves to unite the flavours.

Serves 4

Ingredients:

6 large apples
juice of 1/2 lemon
175g / 6 oz fresh dates
25g / 1 oz white marzipan
5 ml / 1 tsp orange flower water
60 ml / 4 tbsp natural yogurt
4 ripe green or purple fresh figs
4 whole almonds, toasted

Directions:

1) Core the apples. Slice them thinly, then cut into thin matchsticks. Put into a bowl, sprinkle with lemon juice to keep them white and set aside.

2) Remove and discard the stones from the dates and cut the flesh into thin strips, then combine with the apple slices. Toss to mix.

3) In a small bowl, soften the marzipan with the orange flower water and combine this with the yogurt. Mix well.

4) Pile the mixed apples and dates into the centre of four plates. Remove and discard the stem from each of the figs and cut the fruit into quarters without cutting right through the base. Squeeze the base with the thumb and forefinger of each hand to open up the fruit.

5) Place a fig in the centre of each apple and date salad, spoon in some yogurt filling and decorate each portion with a toasted almond. Serve.

Cook's Tip:
When choosing fresh dates, select those that are fat and shiny, with skins that are golden and smooth. You may wish to remove the skin by squeezing the stem end, but the figs, however, have thin skins that are edible.

This recipe is from Italy's 500 Best-Ever Recipes edited by Jeni Wright.

Heaven and Earth

or Himmel und Erde in German.

I love traditional foods. I enjoy learning about other cultures. And I'm fascinated with history. All these interests are satisfied in a fabulous cookbook my sister gave me years ago -- Elisabeth Luard's The Old World Kitchen. Actually, I don't think my sister so much as gave it to me as that I borrowed it and never returned it! :-) Then, much later, she said I could keep it. Thanks, sis!

Here's a very simple, traditional German recipe that combines three distinctive flavors, potatoes, apples, and bacon. For the bacon, I recommend if at all possible that you get some locally raised, pastured, without the nitrates and nitrites.

The German kitchen has some particularly good potato recipes, inluding delicious pancakes made with raw grated potatoes and served with apples or stewed fruit; and an excellent dish known as "Heaven and Earth" which mixes boiled potatoes with apples and crisp fried bacon. This mixture of fruit and vegetables, sweet and sour, is characteristic of northern country cooking -- Holland, Belgium, Alsace, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Scandinavia all have similar mixtures. Immigrants to America, particularly the German and Dutch settlers in Pennsylvania, took their sweet-salt dishes with them and adapted the recipes to local ingredients. The resident Indians already used sweet maple syrup to dress their meat. Thence developed those peculiarly American dishes such as pumpkin-and-marshmallow pie to eat with the Thanksgiving turkey. Waffles with maple syrup and bacon, even the peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich, belong to the same tradition.

This makes an excellent supper or light luncheon dish.

Serves 4

Time: 40 minutes

Ingredients:

2 pounds (6 medium-sized) potatoes
2 pounds apples
one 8-ounce slab of bacon in thick (1/4 inch) slices


Directions:

You will need a large saucepan and a small frying pan. If the potatoes are new and small, you merely need to wash them. If they are old, peel them closely and quarter them. Put them to boil in plenty of salted water. Peel and cut the apples into chunks the size of the potato pieces. Add them to the potatoes after 10 minutes. Finish cooking both together. By the time the potatoes are cooked, the apples will be soft but still holding their shape.

Meanwhile, dice the bacon and fry it in its own fat. Drain the cooked apples and potatoes. Pile them into a hot dish and scatter the crisp bacon, with its cooking juices, over the top. Serve immediately.

Suggestions:

Cook 1 pound of fresh sausage (bratwurst would be most appropriate) with the bacon. Serve all together.

Fry a handful of fresh bread crumbs in the bacon fat until crisp and golden. Scatter of the potatoes.