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Dessert

Pickled Figs

A preserved fig dish made by boiling figs in a lye bath, then cooking in a sugar and vinegar syrup with cloves and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Pickled Figs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the figs

  1. Place the figs in a wire basket and dip them briefly into a deep kettle of hot lye; then drain.

Make the syrup

  1. In a pot, combine vinegar and sugar; boil and skim the mixture.

  2. Add the figs to the syrup and boil until thoroughly cooked; then remove the figs.

  3. Boil the syrup down until thickened.

Pack and preserve

  1. Layer the figs in a jar, adding bits of cinnamon bark and cloves between layers until the jar is full.

  2. For every gallon of fruit, use 2 teaspoons of whole cloves and 4 tablespoons of cinnamon.

  3. Scald the syrup for seven mornings, pouring it boiling hot over the fruit to keep it well covered.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Fig + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together614 recipes

    Shared aroma: cinnamyl acetate (sweet aromatic, cinnamon).

  3. Fig + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together404 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  4. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

White smyrna figs
Provide the fruit that is softened and then preserved in the sweet syrup.
Sugar
Sweetens the syrup and helps preserve the figs.
Cider vinegar
Adds acidity to the syrup, giving the pickle its sharp flavour and helping preserve it.
Lye
Briefly dipped onto the figs to change their skin so they cook and take up syrup.
Cinnamon
Adds warm aroma and spice flavour to the figs.
Whole cloves
Adds aromatic spice flavour to the figs.

The step that matters

Dipping the figs in lye. Lye is strongly alkaline and can burn skin and eyes; the dip must be brief and the figs thoroughly rinsed, since leftover lye makes the fruit harmful and taints the pickle.

Swap the fig

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cider, vinegar, sugar, clove, cinnamon):

  1. Applefits better
  2. Quincefits about as well
  3. Vanillafits about as well
  4. Figthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cider, vinegar, sugar, clove, cinnamon. 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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