Name: Preserved Figs
Ingredients: 4 pounds white figs, peeled; 3 pounds sugar

Why it works: Fig and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,241 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Preserved Figs

Ingredients

4 pounds white figs, peeled
3 pounds sugar

Directions

Peel the figs.
Combine the figs and sugar in a pot.
Cook the mixture as you would for other preserves.

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.

Fig + sugartop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,241 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

White figs: Provide the fruit bulk, flavour and pectin-bearing pulp that give the preserves their body.
Sugar: Sweetens the figs and, at high concentration, helps preserve them and thicken the syrup.

“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.