Skip to main content
Dessert

Another Fig Preserve

A preserve made from unripe figs soaked, boiled, and set in a sugar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Fig and lime share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 49 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Another Fig Preserve

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the figs

  1. Scrape the unripe figs and cut a small slit across the top.

  2. Soak the figs in a basin of cold water with 2 tablespoons of lime for about 12 hours, weighted down.

  3. Wash the figs clean and prepare a saucepan with 3 quarts of water, 1 teaspoon of carbonate of soda, and 1 tablespoon of coarse sea salt.

  4. Boil the figs in the mixture until soft enough to pierce easily with a reed, keeping the saucepan open.

  5. Drain the figs through a colander or cloth.

Make the syrup and preserve

  1. For the syrup, use 2 pounds of sugar and make a clear syrup with equal parts water and sugar.

  2. Once strained and cool, soak the figs in the syrup overnight.

  3. The next day, preserve the figs on a slow fire for 3 to 4 hours until they look clear.

  4. Cork the figs in small jars.

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. Fig + limetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together49 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  2. Fig + sugartop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Lime + sugartop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,332 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

What each ingredient does

Figs
Provide the bulk of the preserve and, once softened and sugared, its tender texture and flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the preserve and, as a concentrated syrup, draws moisture out of the figs and helps preserve them.
Lime
Alkaline soak that softens the tough unripe fig flesh so it can cook through.

The step that matters

Boiling the figs until soft. Unripe figs are firm and must be cooked until they yield easily to a reed; under-boiling leaves them tough, while the alkaline soak and boil must be carried out fully so the fruit can absorb the syrup evenly.

Swap the lime

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Pearfits better
  4. Limethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fig, sugar. 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.

More fig preserve recipes

Green 5 See all 9 →

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes