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Dessert

To Preserve Blue Figs

A method for preserving blue figs in sugar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lime and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,289 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

To Preserve Blue Figs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the figs

  1. Peel the figs and soak them in a solution of lime-water (½ tablespoon air-slaked lime in ½ bucket of water) for nearly an hour.

  2. Drain the figs well.

Make the preserves

  1. For every pound of figs, add ¾ pound of white sugar.

  2. Slice the lemons very thin, remove the seeds, and strain them in a preserving kettle until tender, using just enough water to dissolve the sugar.

  3. Add the figs to the kettle and boil until cooked through.

Seal

  1. Seal the figs in jars while boiling hot.

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. Lime + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,289 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Fig + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together763 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Blue figs
Form the bulk of the preserve, providing the fruit flesh and most of its texture.
Air-slacked lime
Calcium in the lime-water helps firm the fig flesh so it holds its shape during cooking.
White sugar
Adds sweetness and, at high concentration, helps preserve the fruit and thicken the syrup.
Lemons
Add acidity and brightness that balance the sweetness of the sugar.

The step that matters

Seal the figs in jars while boiling hot. Filling jars with boiling-hot preserves drives out air and helps the lids seal as the contents cool, which limits spoilage.

Swap the fig

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

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Mangofits better
  4. Figthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lime, sugar, lemon. 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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