Fig, Salami and Gorgonzola Salad

This is probably the longest period that I’ve been away from my blog. Well, not probably, but certainly. New city, new kitchen, new gadgets, no laptop and no gas for a while, no dining table yet, hardly any cooking utensil and absolutely no props made it impossible for me to work for my blog. Add to that new job, insane work hours, 40+ km of commute everyday and major fatigue. There have been days when I’ve slept for 12 hours at a stretch, woken up to have only a bowl of muesli sprinkled with dried fruits and nuts and literally rush to office. I’ve had sandwiches till the time I started smelling of bread. Tandoori paneer and grilled chicken came as breaths of fresh air and with such a long gap, you may say I had almost forgotten how to bake a cake!
Do I not have anything stored in my draft, you ask? Of course I do. For rainy days. But all photographs belonging to the posts in my draft have been left behind in my old laptop in Calcutta. I did plan to transfer them to my hard drive but bouts of fever and massive food poisoning right before the day I left home didn’t allow me to do that either. So for the first fortnight in the city, I basically had no option but to sit pretty and twiddle my thumbs.
Then one by one came the gas, a 52-litre OTG (a gift from Didi-Antar da), an air fryer (yet another gift from a couple friend far, far away in the US of A), a mixer grinder. My props and baking utensils were packed and sent from home and very soon my kitchen started wearing the “saturated:” look I was so familiar with! However, what was missing, and still is, is the dining table we ordered ages back (which has a different story altogether which should be reserved for another day). It shows no sign of getting delivered and without that, photographing my food has almost become an impossibility. Not that I’m not enjoying this hassle-free period of cooking and eating without worrying about angles and light, but at times when I do cook something with exotic ingredients that I know are not a regular in my kitchen, I can’t help but feel a little sad for not being in my blogger-mode. This was one such instance. It’s not everyday that you cook with fresh figs and gorgonzola. And when you do that, you don’t let the opportunity pass, even if it means capturing the plate of food through your humble phone camera.

Serves: 2

Ingredients:
Fresh figs, cut into half: 8-10
Chicken/Pork Salami, roughly torn: 8-10
Gorgonzola cheese, crumbled: 2-3 tbsp
Croutons, loosely packed: 1 cup (I used store-bought ones as I had them lying around but you can obviously make your own croutons)

For the dressing:

Extra Virgin Olive Oil: 2 tbsp
Honey: 2 tbsp
English mustard: 1.5 tsp
Lemon juice: 1 tbsp
Salt: to taste
Pepper: to taste

Method:

1. Mix all the ingredients for the dressing in a bowl. Reserve 1 tbsp and pour over the rest on the figs and salami. Let it rest for 30-45 minutes.

2. After that, tumble in the croutons, mix well and let it rest for another 10-15 minutes, but keep a hawk’s eye out to check that the croutons don’t turn soggy.

3. In a serving plate, arrange the fig slices and salami. (You can also layer the plate itself with a bed of rocket leaves, which I wanted to do so much but was too lazy to venture out just for that!), throw in the croutons and crumble the gorgonzola on top. Sprinkle the remaining dressing.

4. Dig in!

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