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Compote of Figs

A chilled compote of figs stewed with lemon peel, sugar, and optional port wine or lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Fig and port wine work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 24 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Compote of Figs

Ingredients

Directions

Stew the figs

  1. Stew the figs in water for 2 to 3 hours until tender.

  2. Remove the lemon peel.

Finish and chill

  1. Pour syrup over the figs.

  2. Chill the compote before serving.

  3. Add port wine or lemon juice just before the figs are done for extra flavor.

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 + port winetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

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

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

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

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

  4. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + port winetop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,100 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Lemon and sugar 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

Figs
Form the body of the compote; they soften as they stew and release their sugars into the syrup.
Lemon peel
Adds aroma from its citrus oils while the figs stew.
Port wine or lemon juice
Adds acidity and bright aroma that balance the sweetness of the figs.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to the syrup and balances the acidity.

The step that matters

Adding the port wine or lemon juice. Acids and the volatile aromatic compounds in port wine fade with prolonged heat. Adding it just before the figs finish cooking keeps the flavor bright instead of dull and cooked-tasting.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Pearfits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fig, port wine, 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 compote recipes

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