If you’ve been here before and read some of my sandwich blog posts, you’ve probably learned that I enjoy a good pun or rhyming phrase. So when I saw the name of a sandwich on a menu in the food court of an outlet mall a few months back, I added it to my list of sandwiches to make.
I didn’t even buy or eat the sandwich. I was sold on it simply by reading the name and description.
What is this sandwich?
A few months back, my wife needed to visit an actual real-life outlet mall, and I decided to accompany her. We were in the food court consuming an adequate but nostalgic-ish cheesesteak, and I saw a place I was not familiar with called Mari Pari Kitchen. The Mari Pari website claims that the menu focuses on European-inspired street food, so I wanted to see what they had available.
We walked past the front of the Mari Pari counter to look at the menu, and one particular sandwich on the “Baguette-wich” section caught my eye. That sandwich is called The Fig & Pig.
After I got past the rhyming name and focused on the sandwich components, I mentally added it to my list to make in the future. A crusty piece of bread, creamy/butter and or cheese, and ham is a sandwich that I very much enjoy, so adding a couple of extra flavorful items could only make it more interesting, right?
I decided to create a version that is very much inspired by Mari Pari’s sandwich description, which is sliced ham, fig jam, melted brie cheese, and arugula with balsamic glaze. I used all of those components, plus some bacon that I had on hand, and made a crusty homemade baguette that I could sandwich all the ingredients into. I also added the awesome word thingamajig into the title of my recipe, which means no one is allowed to sue me. Ever.
Maybe one day I’ll get back to that outlet mall and try this sandwich from Mari Pari, but until then, I can create my own inspired version of the fig and pig thingamajig sandwich.
Combo of fig and pig
The combination of figs and pork products is not something that Mari Pari invented. These two things have been a very popular pairing of flavors in all sorts of restaurant dishes. From pizzas to burgers, you’ll find versions of figs with ham, bacon, or prosciutto all over the place. Here are two I found on Instagram with just a quick search.
This is The Fig & The Pig Pizza from a restaurant called Provisions out of Yakima, Washington. They say this version of the pizza is only available for a limited time.
And this Fig & Pig burger that came up in my search is from a place near me in Chicago, called Carol’s Pub. This is a beef burger with prosciutto, arugula, blue cheese crumbles, and fig jam.
The combination of the fig preserves or jam and salty and savory pork products works very well in a contrasty sort of way. If you’ve been reading for a while, you probably know I am a large fan of mixing sweet and savory flavors, so this is a great pairing of sandwich components for me.
Can pigs eat figs?
As I was writing this blog post, I was wondering whether pigs could actually eat figs or not. It turns out that pigs seem to love figs.
A quick Google search led me to this excerpt from the Pacific Rural Press published in 1896. A person named E. B. Beecher attempted an experiment where they fed a pig nothing but figs for 9 days to see how much weight it would gain.
None of this has anything to do with the sandwich in question, but if you want to read more about the findings and the resulting commentary from a supposed expert on the matter, you can click that link above to learn more about how much it cost to raise pigs in the late 1800s than you probably need to know.
Now it’s back to sandwiches.
Technically, I’ve already written about a Fig and Pig sandwich before, but I didn’t call it that. During the summer of 2024, I shared a prosciutto and cantaloupe sandwich that also had fig preserves in it. The flavors worked really well then, but I think the combination is even better in this sandwich.
Now that we know what our target sandwich is composed of, we need to discuss the components. As usual, I’ll start with the bread.
French-style baguettes
I’ve written a lot about this baguette recipe when I wrote about the Jambon Beurre sandwich about a year ago. It’s not a beginner bread recipe, but it’s not exactly hard either.
Normally, when you make buns or rolls, you shape them and place them directly on the pan that you plan to bake them on, so they rise, and you can move them to the oven to cook without disturbing them or deflating the gas that has built up inside them. This is not what you typically do with baguettes.
Baguettes are shaped and allowed to proof in something called a couche, which is a heavy linen or cotton cloth, with each roll of dough pushed lying next to its sibling with just the cloth folded between them so they do not stick together. This helps to shape the dough and keeps the dough from spreading outward, forcing it to rise upwards. If you do not have a couche, you can use a clean towel.
But now that the dough is proofed and we need to bake, how do you get it from the cloth into an oven? That’s where a transfer peel—sometimes called a flipping board—comes into play. A transfer peel is just a long flat piece of wood that you tuck under the baguette dough and use the couche to carefully roll each dough log onto the board without deflating the dough.
As I said above, I wrote a lot more about this process in my post from last year about the Jambon beurre, so check that out if this at all interests you and you want to learn more.
I also created an Instagram reel for the Jambon beurre, which focuses on the bread, couche, transfer peel, and baking process a little bit.
Part of the magic in a crusty baguette comes from steam in an oven. Most home bakers will not have an oven that creates steam—I certainly do not—but professional bakeries do. Steam keeps the surface of the dough moist, which allows it to expand rapidly during the initial baking process. This rapid rise leads to a thinner and crispier crust on the resulting bread.
I do my best to include tips in my baguette recipe so that you can introduce a bit of steam into the process. It’s not going to be as good as a professional bakery situation, but it does seem to make a difference in the crust of these rolls.
Here’s my French-style baguettes recipe, or you can find a nice crusty bread alternative at the store, because the exterior crunch is fairly important in this sandwich with some softer components.
French-style baguettes
A crispy, crusted bread roll that is still soft and chewy in the middle. Perfect for a sub-style sandwich where you need big bread crunch or even sliced thinly and served toasted with olive oil alongside meat and cheese on a charcuterie board.
Get RecipeHam and bacon
The pig in Mari Pari’s sandwich appears to be deli-sliced ham. I wanted mine to be a little bit thicker and more rustic than deli slices. I also decided to add bacon to my version because a ham sandwich is even better when you add bacon.
For the ham, I wanted to slice some ham off the bone, but the prices of a whole ham are out of this world at the moment, so I opted for buying two bone-in ham steaks and carefully slicing those into fairly thin, sandwichable slices.
As for the bacon, I simply baked a package so that I’d have pieces to add whenever I made the sandwiches. I do put the sandwich in the oven briefly, which will warm the ham and bacon just a bit right before serving. Here’s my simple baked bacon recipe if you need that. If you use 2 sheet pans, you can bake a whole batch of bacon at once with minimal clean-up needed.
Oven-baked bacon
30 minutesFig preserves
While fig is in the name of the sandwich, it’s a fairly simple component of the sandwich because it’s store-bought fig preserves.
I’ve written about Bonne Manman preserves and jams before, but they’re a popular brand that frequently appears in our fridge. Their fig preserves are great on toast or even mixed into a salad dressing. This is the fig in the Fig and Pig sandwich, and I use it very simply, just by spreading it on the bottom slice of the roll underneath the cheese.
The sweetness works really well with the creamy brie and the sweet and savory ham and bacon.
Brie cheese
Brie is a super creamy cheese. It’s almost like butter, which is sort of why this whole sandwich makes me think about the Jambon buerre sandwich, which is simply butter and ham inside of a baguette. For this particular sandwich, I cut 1/4 inch thick slices of brie and try to get enough slices to comfortably layer on top of the fig preserves along the bottom of the baguette or roll.
Once the brie is on the bread, I put both halves of the roll into a 350°F oven for 5 minutes to get the brie to start melting just a bit.
Balsamic-glazed arugula
On its own, arugula is a bit peppery. In my opinion, this brings an interesting flavor to the final sandwich, but I dress the arugula with balsamic glaze, which brings a bit more sweetness and a little bit of twang to the finished sandwich.
Since the roll gets toasted and becomes more crusty during its brief time in the oven, I also add just a little bit of olive oil to the top of the roll, which helps to soften the interior of the bread.
The fig and pig thingamajig recipe and photos
Here are a whole bunch of photos of this sandwich. I think I made it five times this week during the testing process. Scroll through the pictures and grab the recipe below.
Fig and pig thingamajig
This fig and pig sandwich combines sweet and savory flavors into one fantastic experience. Adding a little melty brie and a crusty roll brings even more excitement to the whole sandwich adventure.
Ingredients:
- 1 six-inch baguette
- 2 or 3 tablespoons fig preserves or fig jam
- 2 to 4 slices brie cheese, sliced in 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick slices
- thick sliced ham
- 2 to 3 slices of cooked bacon
- small handful arugula
- 1 to 3 teaspoons balsamic glaze
- 1 to 2 teaspoons olive oil
Directions:
Pre-heat your oven to 350°F (176°C).
Slice a 6-inch baguette or crusty roll.
Spread fig jam on the bottom of the roll and add sliced brie cheese on top.
Place the top slice and bottom slice of bread with the jam and cheese into the preheated oven for 5 minutes or until the cheese starts to melt.
Remove both pieces of the roll and add slices of ham and bacon to the bottom slice on top of the melting cheese.
Place the bottom slice with the ham and bacon on it back into the oven for an additional 5 minutes to warm the meat and keep melting the cheese. You can add the top slice back in as well if you want it to be extra crispy, but it should be toasted from the previous time in the oven.
After five minutes, everything should be hot and melty. Remove the bread and top the ham and bacon with a handful of arugula.
Top the arugula with a drizzle of balsamic glaze and sprinkle some additional balsamic glaze and a drizzle of olive oil on the top slice of bread.
Sandwich and serve.
Check back next week
Next week, we’ll be tackling some very popular and basic tacos and turning them into a sandwich that no longer exists. Come back or subscribe to find out what I’m talking about.
