The Future and Some Figs.

Friends, Sympathizers and Well Wishers,

I welcome you so completely, to out little ol' community foodie blog. Look, we all love to eat, but more importantly, we all love to eat delicious, unique, hand made foods.

The Cocotte Communal (cocotte means chicken, pot, and prostitute in french, tehhehe get it?) will serve as our online voyeuristic recipe card collection. My hope is that it will be a great way to share ideas, but more selfishly, may help us all keep tract of our own recipes a little better.

Please feel free to share any recipes you have made or modified and review any restaurants from your current cities, or from your travels. We want to know how you used those weird vegetables from your CSA boxes, or where you ate that crazy boars liver and quail egg sandwich with the durian reduction you now can't stop craving (i'm looking in your direction Matthew). If you are not added to the list of admins, email me and I will get you on the list.

I am very excited to get some delish baked-good recipes from Kate, gluten free delicacies from Cheryl, crazy noodle dishes from Trist, and yummy, well, everythings from Anna. Happy fooding, all.

Oh, and if you don't like the layout please feel free to update and change how you see fit.

Now, onto the FIGS.

I recently made a Fig, Caramelized Onion and Sausage Flatbread, that was both savory and sweet, rich and delicate (not to toot my own horn or anything). In order to be able to make it again in the future, and possibly make it better, I want to write down the recipe and encourage you all to make it, and maybe share your own modifications!

Fig Flatbread

*Take out the package of frozen pasty dough and set it on the counter before you start cooking, that sucker takes forever to defrost.

Fig Reduction-

2 Baskets Black Figs

1-2 cups good Balsamic

2 Tbsp Thyme (Fresh or dried)

Salt and Pepper to taste.

Chop figs and saute until soft, add balsamic and thyme and let reduce for 20-45 min, depending on how jammy you want the paste.

Caramelized Onions-

*2 Pork Sausages in any variety you want (I used a pork and fennel kind from McCalls on Hillhurst)

2 Yellow Onions

1-2 Slabs of butter

1-2 Tbsp sugar ( I used a habanero sugar from Spice Market in Silverlake)

1-2 Tbsp Red Pepper Flakes

Salt/Pepper to taste

Cook pork sausage in dutch over, remove sausage and set aside, leaving the fat in the pan. Add butter, melt, then add onions. Cook on very low heat for 45-1 hour. Halfway through the cooking add sugar to help with caramelization. When desired caramelization is reached add the sausage meat back into pot and the red pepper flakes.

Unroll dough and spread on cookie sheet (make sure you grease the sheet), spoon down figs and then add the onion mixture on top. Bake according to pastry dough instructions.

Top cooling flatbread with some herbed goat cheese and ribbons of basil and drizzle a little more balsamic over the top.

enjoy the noms.

* Pancetta, or bacon may be a nice substitute for the sausage.