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Fig Filling

A thickened fig mixture made with sugar, water, and lemon juice, cooked until spreadable.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Fig Filling

Why it works: Fig and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 763 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Fig Filling

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Mix the figs, sugar, boiling water, and lemon juice in the order given.

  2. Cook in a double boiler until thick enough to spread.

  3. Spread while hot.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

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

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

  3. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon 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
Provide the main bulk and fruity flavour, breaking down into a thick, spreadable filling.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, as it dissolves in the cooking fruit, helps thicken the filling.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweet fig flavour and helps keep it balanced.

The step that matters

Cooking in a double boiler until thick enough to spread. Gentle, indirect heat lets the figs soften and the mixture thicken slowly without scorching on the bottom of the pan. Cooking it too briefly leaves it runny, while overheating can burn the sugar and fruit.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Pearfits better
  4. Lemonthe 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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