Goat cheese, fig & prosciutto crostini
Meaning “little toasts”, crostini is an Italian appetizer of toasted or grilled sliced bread, topped with meats, cheeses and/or herbs. And of course, this appetizer is most often presented and enjoyed with wine!This past weekend, I got together with an old friend that I hadn’t seen in quite some time. Something special was definitely in order…Italian cuisine and wine! We often cook together and when we do, we cook with love. We take our time. We savour the moment, the food and the wine. A typical dinner time for us, at the earliest, would be 22.30 – 23.00…oh the pleasure of true “slow cooking”.Flavour: the word itself is the essence of balancing tastes; sweet, sour, bitter, salty. Inspired by a recipe on The Italian Dish, the appetizer I made for our Italian evening was this lovely little crostini of goat cheese, fig and prosciutto, topped with fresh basil. Here we have it…the sweetness of the figs playing off the tart, sourness of the goat cheese, with an added touch of salt from the prosciutto and the herbacious bitterness of the fresh basil. What a combination…so delicious! Pair with a rich and bold Sicilian red wine, as we did, and you won’t be disappointed.
Equipment
- 1 oven
Ingredients
- fresh foccacia baguette
- extra-virgin olive oil
- course sea salt
- fresh goat cheese
- sliced figs fresh or preserved if not available/in season
- italian prosciutto thinly sliced
- fresh basil leaves
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees
- Cut baguette into 1/2 inch slices and place in a single layer on a baking sheet
- Drizzle good quality extra-virgin olive oil and sprinkle sea salt over each piece. Bake until toasty golden brown
- Remove from oven and let cool slightly
- Over each crostini, spread a generous amount of goat cheese (see I told you you’d see a lot of cheese on my blog!)
- Top with sliced figs, a curl of prosciutto and a fresh sprig of basil.