Italian Cooking & Language Blog

Fare La Scarpetta means to wipe your plate clean with a piece of bread.

What else could you ask for?

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Prosciutto, Fig & Arugula Salad




It was such a good eating summer that I’m still thinking about it. Not only did my mother make the most wonderful fried zucchini flowers, but she also prepared Mario Batali’s recipe for grilled fig and prosciutto salad from his cookbook Simple Italian Food. Lightly grilled figs, olive oil, rosemary, parsley, arugula, and balsamic vinegar made this dish perfect.

There were fresh fig trees growing outside of my apartment on New York University’s campus in Florence, Italy.  I would pick a few and eat them fresh and whole. Those were the days. Of course, I was on duty 24 hours a day and lived on campus, but, the figs! The figs!

I’ve seen them in supermarkets around Washington, D.C., late summer and early fall, but they never look spectacular. Or, they do and they are terribly expensive. Have you found a great market for figs?

No comments: