Fig leaves bring coconut, vanilla, and almond aromas to sweet and savory dishes. They can be toasted, steeped, or ground to infuse flavor into desserts, syrups, and rice, or used as wrappers for foods like fish. Here's how I make the most of them in my kitchen. My dad had a gift for plants, and in our small Rhode Island hometown, he managed to coax even tropical cuttings into life. His greatest triumph was a fig tree, a little taste of the Mediterranean in our New England home. Each year it yielded only a handful of figs, six or eight at most, and we savored each one. Sweet, jammy figs hardly need an introduction, but it's their leaves that left the strongest impression on me. Fig leaves have long been evocative, with images of Adam and Eve using them for cover in the Garden of Eden. They carry a verdant aroma with notes of toasted coconut, vanilla, almond, and pandan. The leaves are versatile and transformative: Once toasted, steeped, or ground, they add flavor to a myriad dishes.…