Cheat’s rosemary pizza bread with pink peppered goat’s cheese, bresaola and figs

My search for the perfect fig for a TV commercial led me to the Oranjezicht City Farm Market at Granger Bay last Saturday. If you are remotely a foodie and have never been, this market next to the V&A Waterfront is an absolute must-visit. The quality of their produce is just stupendous, but more about this market in a separate post soon.

Bottom line is I found my perfect figs there. These purple beauties are called Evita or Parisian figs locally, but their French name, bourjasotte noir, sounds ever so much better. Indeed it’s on a French barge trip down the Canal du Midi that I first encountered the plump pink deliciousness of the bourjasotte. Pretty much every day my lunch consisted of these figs bursting with sunripe sweetness. I would smash them onto seriously crusty baguette and top them with a crotin-style goat’s cheese. A drizzle of olive oil, a sprinkling of fleur de sel and I was in foodie heaven. A glass of rosé to wash it down with was obligatory of course.

Weepily nostalgic for the south of France I headed home with my precious figs in a paper bag. On the way I stopped off at Checkers where I swooped by their baking counter to pick up some ready-to-bake bread dough. I rolled it really thin, brushed it with olive oil and sprinkled over rosemary. Into a seriously hot oven it went. Once golden and crisp, I got serious with a log of Fairview goat’s cheese that I’d rolled in smashed pink peppercorns. The figs followed, then some Richard Bosman bresaola, which I’d also found at the market. A drizzle of oil, a sprinkling of Maldon salt and I tucked in. I was back on the barge.