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Dessert

Sweet Pickled Figs

A preserved fig recipe using salt, alum, vinegar, sugar, and spices, boiled and jarred.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Sweet Pickled Figs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the figs

  1. Soak the figs in salt water for 12 hours.

  2. Drain the figs and parboil them in water with dissolved alum until soft, being careful not to break the skins.

  3. Wash the figs in several changes of clear water to remove the alum and drain well.

Make the syrup and pack

  1. In a pot, combine vinegar and sugar to make a syrup, adding mace, cinnamon, and cloves for flavor.

  2. Once the syrup has boiled, add the figs and stir gently.

  3. Pack the figs into glass jars and process pint jars in a boiling water bath for 20 minutes.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Fig + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together614 recipes

    Shared aroma: cinnamyl acetate (sweet aromatic, cinnamon).

  3. Fig + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together404 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  4. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Mace + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Figs
Form the main body of the pickle and carry the texture once softened.
Sugar
Sweetens the pickle and, with the vinegar, forms the syrup that preserves the figs.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and helps preserve the figs.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the figs during the initial overnight soak.
Alum
Firms the fig skins and flesh during parboiling so they hold their shape.

The step that matters

Parboiling the figs. Parboil only until the figs are soft, without breaking the skins. Overcooking splits the skins and makes the figs mushy, while the alum rinse must follow so no residue remains.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fig, vinegar, sugar, cinnamon, clove):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fig, vinegar, sugar, cinnamon, clove. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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