For northern Lower Michigan-primarily based chef Bryon “Fig” Figueroa, cooking with fresh new neighborhood components isn’t just a choice it’s a subject of basic principle.
Above the earlier two many years, Figueroa has built a title for himself in the nearby foodstuff scene cooking at area resorts, wineries, cafés and eating places. At each and every spot he’s labored, Figueroa has introduced the philosophy that a cafe menu shouldn’t be some set doc, but somewhat something that evolves and shifts regularly dependent on what area farmers have in-season. And since Figueroa lives in the section of Michigan regarded affectionately as “The Cherry Capital of the Entire world,” it goes without the need of saying that he is familiar with a factor or two about cooking with cherries.
“With the stone fruits, it’s these types of a ‘get it now’ scenario,” Figueroa says of the neighborhood adoration for cherries. “I dove into cherries when I moved to this area, but I have been a stone-fruit lover my full life. And that time is just so fleeting. It’s like you’re chasing it the entire yr, and then there are two weeks in which you happen to be just rolling in it. And then, poof! It is gone.”
When Feast and Field related with him, Figueroa was just in the midst of starting off a new gig as the chef at a brand name-new cafe in Northport, Michigan, called Northport Pub & Grille. With its grand opening coinciding with the start off of cherry period in northern Michigan, Figueroa was wondering a ton about cooking with cherries at the time, brainstorming a series of menu functions that would place the spotlight on Michigan’s most legendary area fruit.
“When you are looking at utilizing cherries in your foods, you want to be imagining, ‘What does my meals convey, and what do I want from the cherry?’” Figueroa describes of his assumed process for designing a cherry-centric menu. For instance, he notes that sweet and tart cherries convey very diverse attributes to a dish. He likes working with sweeter versions with gamey meats like duck or goose, versus tart cherries that he prefers as a enhance to spicier dishes — a spicy Asian slaw, maybe.
Texture issues, also. Some cherries are delicate, gentle and moist, when others are meatier and more significant. If the cherries are the “main event” of a dish, that weightier texture might matter. For example, Figueroa prefers significant, dim cherries with a organization, juicy texture for his cherry panzanella mainly because a substantial component of the dish’s appeal is “actually biting into that cherry.”
For a cherry salad dressing, on the other hand, the regulations of selecting the right cherry for the occupation are unique. “It’s all about the cherry taste, for the reason that the cherry is just heading to get buzzed into the dressing,” Figueroa clarifies. “So, I want the cherry flavor to be well known, but the cherry doesn’t have to have any real meat to it.”
As for establishing recipes that connect with for cherries when cherries are not in-year, Figueroa has a hack for that, also.
“You can choose a dried tart cherry, when you are talking out-of-time, and you can plump it by soaking it in a cherry vinegar or wine,” he claims. “That cherry usually takes on all the acid of regardless of what you want to soak it in, and that is a wonderful way to plump it again up and rehydrate it.”
Underneath, Figueroa presents two culinary-cherry favorites.


This panzanella recipe attributes sweet black cherries in place of the extra normal tomatoes for a gratifying Midwest mashup.


An iteration of the French Monte Cristo sandwich, this cherry cristo does not skimp on taste with bacon, capicola ham, sweet cherries and maple syrup.