Ricotta toast with jammy figs, hazelnut, and truffle honey

This sourdough toast with ricotta, figs, hazelnut, and truffle honey more than hits the mark for a sumptuously summery breakfast. The creamy ricotta strewn with hazelnut rubble and the gorgeously floral baked figs eats like a sexy, elevated peanut butter and jam sandwich. And the truffle honey? That just really takes the whole thing to another level; whoever discovered truffles will have a place in heaven. Thinking that a sexy and sophisticated peanut butter and jam sandwich is an impossible contradiction? Well try this. Try it and then tell me it didn’t make you feel both comforted by nostalgic childhood memories and hella fancy and grown up all at the same time.

I know that avocado toast still reigns supreme, but creamy ricotta toast with any kind of jammy condiment is such a refreshing alternative. This dish was born out of two food memories combined into one. They occurred in two different countries and neither one happened at breakfast. The first was in a gothic, rustic restaurant in Budapest with old wine bottles housing dripping candles and dark wooden tables. It was a tasting menu and one of the early dishes was burrata with baked figs, honey and toasted pine nuts. It was truly delicious in its simplicity, and in every bite you could taste each ingredient to its fullest. The smokey woodiness of the pine nuts, the butteryness of the burrata and the heady floral notes bursting out from the figs.

The second food memory that inspired this dish was at a notoriously good eatery in Rome called Da Enzo, where the line was always down the street for what looks like a pretty ramshackle establishment. Extra tables were constantly springing up further and further from the restaurant’s doors, waiters dancing around nimbly with tableware like this was the set of some sort of Broadway musical. When I was finally sitting at a table on the cobbled street the waiter brought two dishes to accompany the bread on the table. Snowy white home made ricotta and a dark, sticky berry jam whose main ingredient to this day remains a mystery to me. The two Roman businessman at the table in front of us were smearing the ricotta on the bread and then gleefully smothering it in the mystery berry substance. So we did the same. It was absolutely delicious. Sweet creamy ricotta and deep yet tangy mystery jam! I mean come on. What is not to like.

Da Enzo Restaurant Rome

So this dish takes the bread from that table on the cobbled Roman street smothered with that creamy ricotta and replaces the mystery jam with the amazing baked figs from Hungary. Feeling Hungary for some of this lusciousness yourself yet? Then keep reading!

I have added one more element to this dish, which is to use a truffle infused honey. I use one from Fortnum and Mason which is absolutely divine, but I have seen other brands at Borough market for example. This dish does not need a truffle honey, and will be utterly delicious with any honey or syrupy substitute. The truffle honey however, absolutely tips this dish over the edge.

You can keep truffle honey for a really long time and unlike truffle oil, it retains its really strong truffle smell extremely well.

Ricotta toast with jammy figs, hazelnut and truffle honey:

Ingredients for one piece of toast:

1) sourdough bread

2) 2 ripe figs

3) 1 tablespoon truffle or regular honey (plus extra for drizzlin)

4) Chopped hazelnuts

5) 1 tbsp olive oil (plus extra for the drizzle)

6) 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

7) fresh thyme

8)Half a garlic clove

Method:

1) Set the grill/broiler to high

2) Halve the figs and place them in a small oven proof dish or pan

3) Pour over the balsamic, truffle honey and olive oil and swirl everything around to mix and coat the figs well

4) scatter on some fresh thyme if you have some

5) Place the dish under the grill/broiler until the figs are soft and have taken on some colour. (5-10 mins) check the figs regularly as the balsamic honey glaze can burn really quickly!

6) lightly toast the sourdough and then rub with a halved garlic clove, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with a small pinch of salt

7) Place it under the broiler/grill until deep golden brown

8) mix fresh ricotta with a pinch of salt and spread over the warm toast

9) Top with the jammy figs and chopped hazelnuts. Finish with a light drizzle of truffle honey if you have it or normal honey if you don’t!