Fig & Sage Sauce

[fl italian]

Okay... I cheated.   While visiting our Italian Market in St Petersburg, they had some great looking fresh pasta: pear & cheese stuffed purses.   Normally, I'd make a brown sage butter sauce for something like that but, as I had no sage in the garden and didn't have time to stop in the local supermarket, I opted to check out the pre-made sauces they had.  Oddly enough, they a fig-sage sauce that sounded perfect for the dish and good heaven, it was!!!

The ingredients were figs (dried), sage, cream and cheese.   When I got the sauce home I added some butter and fresh ricotta to stretch it a bit without any damage to the magnificent flavor of this sauce.

I've got a rough idea of how to assemble it but if someone out there has a recipe for this, I'd really like to see it.   I tried Google but with no strong results. I'm figuring some butter, cream, some figs and sage from the food processor, and some ricotta as the cheese.

Anybody have any ideas on how to create this?   Am on I the right path???

Thanks..

 

[chrisbelgium]

You're probably talking about some kind of ravioli or other pasta?

You mentioned these;

Stuffed with pear and cheese; a combination of pear and gorgonzola is simply heaven. (Mostly complemented by walnuts and arugula.)

Brown sage butter sauce; perfect sauce with hearty ravioli, such as the ones stuffed with pumpkinmousse etc.

If you like fig and sage combo, don't let anyone stop you from experimenting. But, I think you should make a difference between stuffing ravioli and the sauce that goes over it. You could make both, but I would use a different method.

- stuffing; mix figs and add cream a bit at a time, until it's a thick paste. Then add some ricotta to make it kind of mousse. You may have to add some sugar or honey and lemonjuice to balance the sweetness. Some lemonzeste in it could be nice too. If you like sage in it, chop maximum 1 leaf very finely and fold it in at the last moment. Sage can be very overwhelming. Let set in the fridge and fill your pasta.

- sauce; mix figs and quite a lot of liquid cream untill you reach the desired thickness. Taste for sugar, add some if necessary. Add also a few drops of lemonjuice. Push through a fine sieve. Done.

Oh, and try to put some portwine in them too. Figs and port are sublime.

 

[koukouvagia]

Very interesting sauce!  I can only take a guess if I were to attempt this.  First of all, I would use dried figs.  Place them in a saucepan with a few tablespoons of water and cook them down for about 20 minutes.  Use a stick blender to puree them.  A few drops of lemon juice really perks them up.

I think ricotta is a great cheese to introduce to the figs.  But also through past experiments I have found that figs and asiago cheese are also a match made in heaven, you may want to try adding that as well.  Mascarpone could help with texture too.  Not sure how to incorporate the sage sorry.

In the end a really nice touch to this sauce would be some fresh arugula leaves tossed in.  That would add a fresh peppery dimension that also goes very well with figs.

 

[chefedb]

Kraft just introduced a new product retail which I tried about a year ago . Its like a whipped cream cheese very very soft almost liquidy that comes in flavors. Check the cream cheese section . It yields a rich final product and does not seperate or break I belive they call it Retail cooking cream cheese
Somewhere I had a recipe for Ravioli made with roasted figs and goat cheese, pine nuts..

 

[fl italian]

I haven't forgotten you guys but I did some more research on my own.   The purses are known as FIOCCHI and are stuffed with cheese and pear.   The stuffing on the fiocchi is ricotta and pears.. semplice...



The sauce recipe that I've thought of but haven't made yet is as follows:

1/2 stick of butter

2-3 dried figs (softened as Kouk suggested)

1 cup of ricotta cheese

1/2 cup cream

1 sage leave, finely chopped

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I would put the ricotta, figs, cream and sage leave into the food processor to create the "sauce" and then use the butter and a saucepan to heat it for placement on the fiocchi.    However, I have a friend who's a chef in Perugia, Italy, who suggested a few drops of reduced balsamic to counter the sweet a little from the figs.   I thought about the Marscapone too but I think the ricotta would give it a bit more "body" and a less sweet feeling as the figs already have that covered.

Do you think this recipe sounds workable?    The sage is needed but very mildly as the dominant flavor of the sauce is the figs. 

Now that you know more about what I'm doing and what I worked with,   The sauce I had was great and perfect for anything filled with cheese or fruit.

 

[koukouvagia]

Sounds good to me and I agree that a little sage would go a long way.  But again, your sauce and the pasta stuffing both are on the sweet side.  I would consider adding a salty cheese to the mix to help balance the flavors.  Parmesan, pecorino, and asiago are very good choices.  Another way to introduce some salt would be to add prosciutto to the stuffing, it goes so well with cheese and pear.

 

[fl italian]

Koukouvagia

I like the suggestion... true, the salt would balance it a bit...

I'm going to give this a go soon as I'm dying to have that sauce again!!