I have been bad, very, very bad…  After a strong start, I have neglected Kitchen Crush and my readers.  My only excuse is that a lot has happened in the past two weeks.  There was a trip to Greece to visit the best of all husbands.  Among other things, we went to Athens, walked through the city, climbed up to Acropolis and dined in a lovely Cretan restaurant called Alatsi (a review of the place and the food will follow shortly).  After Greece, there was Poland, where I visited my family and I got infected with a vicious stomach flu, which not only put me off cooking and food for a good week and a half, but also resulted in a two kilogram weight loss.  [While I generally wouldn’t recommend stomach bugs as a weight loss solution (I will spare you the gruesome details), I think that we’re even, that virus and I].  After a week at home, where my hopes to cook and photograph some delicious Polish foods with my mom have been dashed, I went to Warsaw, to visit my very, extremely, super-pregnant friend Gośka (hang in there, only four days to go).  And then, I came back to Düsseldorf and started my new… tam-tam-tam-tam: job.  That’s right, a couple of weeks ago a job offer was made and I accepted.  Thus, I am no longer a lady of leisure or as my husband claims ‘bum extraordinaire’, I am now a member of the working class.  I do not know what this will mean for Kitchen Crush… undoubtedly less time to cook and missed rendezvous with the perfect photographing light during the week.  But on the bright side, I will have a whole week to come up with the most delicious and beautiful foods to cook on the weekends.  This Easter weekend has already given me a head start.  I have a bunch of beautiful recipes waiting to be posted.  So without further ado, here’s the very elegant and delicious Red Wine Fig and Gorgonzola Cream salad.

Ingredients:

4 fresh figs
4Tbs sugar
200ml (0.85 cups) red wine
½ cinnamon stick
1 bay leaf
135g (4.8 oz) mascarpone
35g (1.2 oz) gorgonzola
16 walnuts, broken into smaller pieces
arugula salad
1Tbs balsamic vinegar
2Tbs olive oil

I often see recipes where figs are paired with walnuts, gorgonzola and prosciutto, all of which are very appealing to me, so when I saw a fig salad recipe in the newest issue of my German food porn (this time they went totally overboard, I feel like cooking almost every dish they featured), I decided to finally go for it.  The recipe is quite easy but the effect seems quite complex and very satisfying.

Caramelize sugar in a pot till golden; add wine, cinnamon and the bay leaf.  Let the wine cook for about ten minutes, till its consistency is syrupy.  In the meantime wash the arugula and the figs.  Dry the figs and cut them in wedges.  Put the arugula in a medium bowl, add the olive oil and the balsamic vinegar, season with salt and pepper and mix well.  Soften the gorgonzola (you can also use Roquefort or any other blue cheese) by warming it up in the microwave for a few seconds and then mix it well with the mascarpone.  Arrange the arugula on the plate, put a dollop of the gorgonzola cream in the center, arrange the figs and the walnuts around the cheese.  Once the wine reduction is ready, remove the cinnamon and the bay leaf and pour some reduction on the figs.  Serve with toasted baguette.

Note: I like the Gorgonzola cream to have a very subtle gorgonzola taste, but if you love gorgonzola, you can increase its ratio in the mix.

Servings: 4 (about 340 kcal/serving)

Adapted from: Lust auf Genuss – 5/2010

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