Harissa-Spiced Fig, Merguez and Almond Salad

This is a rather special salad. Actually, figs have the capacity to render pretty much anything special: their appearance is lush for starters – they have but to lie down on a plate or pose in a fruit bowl and they steal the show. They are also fêted for their aphrodisiac properties: yup – they are the all-round floozy of the fruit world.

Fun fig fact: they would not have survived as a species if it wasn’t for a tiny critter known as the fig wasp, Blastophaga grossorum (a nam