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Dessert

Rhubarb and Fig Conserve

A preserve made from rhubarb, oranges, figs, sugar, walnuts, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Rhubarb and Fig Conserve

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Chop rhubarb finely and combine with sugar, lemon juice, and one chopped orange.

  2. Add chopped walnut meats and boil for 15 minutes.

  3. Stir in the remaining chopped orange and chopped figs.

  4. Cook slowly, stirring frequently, until the mixture reaches the consistency of marmalade.

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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Walnut + figtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together373 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Rhubarb + orangetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together299 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  4. Orange + figtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together407 recipes

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

  5. Rhubarb + figtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together48 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Sweetens the preserve and, with the fruit, helps it thicken and set as it cooks down.
Rhubarb
Provides the tart base and bulk of the preserve, with pectin and acidity that aid setting.
Figs
Add body, sweetness and a soft texture to the chopped fruit mixture.
Oranges
Add acidity and aromatic citrus flavour, and their peel and pulp help the mixture set.
Walnut meats
Add crunch and a toasted, nutty flavour that contrasts with the soft fruit.

The step that matters

Cook slowly, stirring frequently, until the mixture reaches the consistency of marmalade. Sugar and fruit must reduce until the concentration is high enough for the pectin to gel as it cools. Stopping too early leaves a runny preserve, while cooking too long or too hot can scorch the sugar and darken the flavour. Frequent stirring prevents sticking at the bottom of the pan.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pistachiofits better
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rhubarb, orange, sugar, meat, lemon, fig. 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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