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Pig Marmalade

A marmalade made from black figs, sugar, and peach juice, boiled slowly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Fig and peach share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 45 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Pig Marmalade

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Peel the black figs.

  2. Combine the peach juice and sugar in a pot and bring to a boil.

  3. Add the figs to the boiling mixture.

  4. Boil slowly for 2 hours.

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 + peachtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together45 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Sugar + peachtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,308 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

Black figs
Provide the main fruit body, bulk, and flavour of the marmalade.
Sugar
Sweetens the marmalade and, as it concentrates, helps it thicken and preserve.
Peach juice
Adds fruity liquid that dissolves the sugar and carries flavour into the figs.

The step that matters

Boil slowly for 2 hours. Long, gentle boiling evaporates water and concentrates sugar and fruit pectin so the mixture sets as a thick marmalade. Too little cooking leaves it runny, while too vigorous a boil can scorch the sugar on the bottom of the pot.

Swap the peach

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits about as well
  3. Pearfits about as well
  4. Peachthe 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.

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