Recipes

Sometimes I just get an idea for something and it gets stuck in my head until I execute it. I’ve always been curious about the world, specifically the plants on the planet. I want to know them and their story, but I also want to know what they can do and if they’re edible. If so what do they taste like? I’m kinda on this fermentation kick right now. It’s a timeline you get to eat. It’s dynamic and ever evolving, and I think that’s beautiful. Enter figckles.

There’s a fig tree at my great grandmother’s house. I pass a fig tree every week. I see its changes over time, from flower to fruit. Once you pick figs they stop ripening (if you pick them green) but they don’t all ripen by the end of the season. I got to wondering what happened if you lactofermented the semi ripe figs or even the baby ones? Would they soften? Would they be edible? Would they be tasty??? Lacto-fermenting is easy and low-effort (really low risk, high reward). I decided to try it, I didn’t have much to lose. The figs were free; I already had salt, a scale, and a jar. I could make a little weight to keep them pressed down. So one day I harvested some figs, just enough to fit to this small jar. I picked mostly those that were avocado ripe (firm with a little give), except one that was young and hard. I brought them back and did a quick rinse of them under cool water since these were an urban forage and I wanted to remove the latex. I weighed them to calculate how much salt I needed, only 3 grams but I accidentally added too much (5g). I was going to leave them whole but I was worried that they wouldn’t ferment as well and I was following the instructions in the noma guide to fermentation (I must admit my first attempt to lacto ferment DID NOT go well, but that was in the Boston days IYKYK). So I quartered all of the figs except the small rocky one, because again I was curious but also apprehensive.

After I quarted them I put them back in the bowl, added the salt, and tossed/mixed them together to make sure they were well coated. Then I put them in the jar and added my diy weight. I didn’t have anything really that fit in this and last time I tried using the zip lock bag method in the noma guide my bag burst. Long story short, I was scarred. Instead I used an old spice jar, filled that with water, and placed that in a clean ziplock bag. I stuff it in the jar and pressed down my quarted figs, then made sure it was well sealed by screwing the lid back on. I set it on my new shelving unit (coming soon to the studio apotroes site), and let it sit for a week. I burped (opened it to let the gas escape) the jar every-ish day. I finally shared them with some friends at a pickle picnic! (This is simply a picnic that everyone needed to bring a pickled/fermented thing to share.) I hadn’t tasted these before I brought them but they were a hit! They’re like olives but floral and sweet? I imagine these would be a really interesting sub in a martini or anywhere you normally use olives. Honestly I might chop some up and make some salmon cakes.

This is an older recipe that I don’t even have a photo of for some reason (actually I just found a photo from when I made this soup and know exactly why I don’t have any good photos of it iykyk). Anyways this soup is actually my favorite because it takes forever to make, smells amazing, and is even more delicious when consumed. I really love making long dishes. I love this soup in the winter and sadly haven’t made it since moving to NYC but would make it every season in Boston. It’s super simple and really just rewarding. You could, in theory, use store-bought broth for this but I really urge you not to do this, properly made this soup takes like 2 days to make because you have to make the broth from scratch but it’s fun and easy. This also makes a ton of soup which can freeze and eat at a later date. I have done this and it’s still amazing. Will say that I did read a description of something and that very much influenced the descriptions in the recipe.

Tools:

6-7.5 Quart Dutch Oven

Strainer

baking sheet and mat or foil

fork and knife

Ingredients:

3-5lb of Chicken Backs

Salt and Pepper

Oil, preferably avocado or olive

1 large onion or 2-3 small ones quartered

Garlic 6 cloves

2-3 Celery stalks

1tsp smoked paprika

A dried chili- chef’s choice (I use chilitepin but thats a little difficult to find bc it’s a wild pepper that grows in the southwest but it provides a staccato type of flavor, sharp upfront with a smoky after taste like warmth from an embrace cut too short. Chipotle is a fine substitute, nora or basque chili are also okay but not as hot)

1/2tsp Rancho Gordo Chili Powder

1/2tsp baking soda

~2 tablespoons of herbs de romance (Rosemary, oregano, parsley, tarragon, coriander, bay, mint, lemon verbena, oregano flowers, garlic//if you can find herbs de Provence without lavender you can also sub that here)

1tbsp vinegar

1 spaghetti squash

2 bunches of kale

Chicken (you can do whatever, could be whole pieces could be cubed breasts or thighs really doesn’t matter)

1 more onion sliced into slivers

4 carrots sliced

Instructions

1. Preheat your oven to 375F.
2. Mix all the spices and baking soda together in a small bowl
3. Add chicken back to a large oven-safe pot/Dutch oven and coat them in oil.
4. Season the chicken with the entirety of the seasoning mix and toss to coat. Add onion, celery, and garlic to the pot and toss again to make sure everything is well mixed (honestly you can add the veg earlier if you want). You should also add salt and pepper.
5. Roast chicken uncovered for 40min to an hour (until the chicken is brown/roasted). While the chicken is roasting, roast the squash in the oven on the baking sheet (could slice it or roast it whole after poking it with a fork). Cook the squash until it’s soft.
6. Remove pot from oven and place on stove
7. Cover the pot with water and add a tablespoon of vinegar. Bring to boil, then reduce to a simmer and cover for honestly like 4-6hrs min but personally I go for the 24hrs. 8hrs is a great sweet spot.
8. So now you have a wonderful and rich base for your soup. Well, almost you need to strain all of this out and reserve the liquid. You can also remove the excess fat from this by using a metal ladle and bowl of ice water. Dip the ladle in the ice water to drop the temp then skim it over the top of the strained liquid. Repeat until the ladle fails to collect fat.
9. Soup time. Truly you could stop here and enjoy some very tasty broth but if you want to make my favorite I recommend continuing.
10. Add the chicken, onion, and carrot (I add them early because I’m allergic to raw carrots so I need them to be thoroughly cooked but you could add them later if you want).
11. While that’s simmering, shred your squash into strands. When the chicken is nearly done add the squash and kale and cook for an additional 10 minutes.