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Dessert

Stewed Figs

Stewed figs are figs cooked in water and sugar, finished with 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 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 ↓

Stewed Figs

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the syrup

  1. Combine the water and sugar in a saucepan.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

Stew the figs

  1. Place the figs in a stone jar.

  2. Pour the boiling water over the figs.

  3. Add the lemon juice and cover the jar.

  4. Cook in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for two hours, or gently in a saucepan until tender.

Serve

  1. Serve in a small glass dish with custard or sponge cake.

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 + 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
Form the main body of the dish and soften into a tender, spoonable fruit as they cook.
Sugar
Sweetens the syrup and helps the figs keep their flavour as they stew.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness and balances the rich, mellow fig flavour.

The step that matters

Cook until tender. Gentle heat softens the fig flesh and pectin slowly, so the fruit stays whole and holds its shape. Vigorous boiling tends to break the figs down into a mush.

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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