Figs For 1001 Nights

Ingredients

• 12 black figs
• 50 grams unsalted butter
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon vanilla sugar
• 1 ½ teaspoons rosewater
• 1 ½ teaspoons orange-flower water
• 500 ml mascarpone cheese
• 100 grams pistachios (slivered)

Method

1. Preheat a grill or oven to the fiercest it will go.
2. Quarter the figs, taking care not to cut all the way through to the bottom, so that they open like flowers, or young birds squawking to be fed worms by their mummy, and sit them, thus opened, in a heatproof dish into which they fit snugly.
3. Melt the butter in a small saucepan, then add the cinnamon, sugar and flower waters. Stir to combine and pour into the figs.
4. Blister under the hot grill or bake in the oven for a few minutes and then serve; it’s that quick. Just give each person a couple of figs on a side plate. Splodge alongside some mascarpone over which you drizzle some of the conker-dark syrup, then sprinkle over some of those green, green shards of pistachio.