Can you stand one more fig recipe? Try drunken fig jam

Can you stand one more fig recipe? I know I’ve been raving about them for a while now. But trust me, you won’t regret this one. It’s really, really good.

Blessed with an abundance of figs thanks to a generous friend, I started looking for ways to use them in quantities. I pickled a pound or so. I wrapped some in prosciutto. I ate a lot of them for breakfast.

And I still had a couple of pounds left over. So I went looking for a recipe for some kind of preserve and found this one for drunken fig jam by Jill Silverman Hough on the Epicurious website.

I kept the original proportions of fruit to sugar, but I tweaked it a little bit to fit what I had on hand. Instead of brandy, I used a manzanilla sherry (figuring the nuttiness would work well). Someone suggested using white Port, which I think would be nice, too. And I’m fascinated by the idea of substituting tequila.

Finally, because the initial mixture tasted a little flat after macerating, I added lemon juice to brighten it up.

It’s really a great preserve that comes together fairly easily — perfect for an inexperienced jammer. It also makes a small enough quantity (three jars) that you can store it in the refrigerator if you don’t want to bother canning. And just FYI: With the long cook, the alcohol is undetectable, there’s just the flavor left behind.

Now I just have to find more figs.

Drunken fig jam

Adapted from a recipe by Jill Silverman Hough from Bon Appetit magazine, via Epicurious. This recipe was not tested in the Test Kitchen

2 lemons

2 pounds ripe fresh figs (preferably black), stemmed, cut into 1/2-inch pieces (about 9 cups)

3/4 pound sugar

1/2 cup sherry or white Port

1/4 teaspoon coarse kosher salt

Using vegetable peeler, remove peel from lemons (yellow part only) in long strips. Cut peel into matchstick-size strips (about 3 tablespoons).

Combine lemon peel, figs, sugar, sherry, juice from both lemons and salt in heavy large deep saucepan; let stand at room temperature 1 hour, stirring occasionally.

Bring fig mixture to boil over medium-high heat, stirring until sugar dissolves. Reduce heat to medium; continue to boil until jam thickens and is reduced to 6 cups, stirring frequently and occasionally mashing mixture with potato masher to crush large fig pieces, 30 to 35 minutes. Remove from heat.

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