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Dessert

Another Fig Preserve

A preserve made by soaking unripe figs in lime, boiling with soda and salt, then steeping in sugar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Fig and lime share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 49 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Another Fig Preserve

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the figs

  1. Scrape the unripe figs and cut a small slit across the top.

  2. Soak the figs in a basin of cold water with 2 tablespoons of lime for about 12 hours, weighing them down with a plate.

  3. After soaking, wash the figs clean.

  4. In a saucepan, combine 1 cup of water, 1 teaspoon of carbonate of soda, and 1 tablespoon of coarse sea salt.

  5. Bring the mixture to a boil and add the figs, cooking until they are soft enough to pierce easily.

  6. Drain the figs through a colander or cloth.

Make the syrup and preserve

  1. For the syrup, use 2 pounds of sugar and make a clear syrup with 1 cup of water to 1 cup of sugar.

  2. Once strained and cool, soak the figs in the syrup overnight.

  3. The next day, preserve the figs over low heat until they are clear, about 3 to 4 hours.

  4. Cork the figs in small jars.

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 + limetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together49 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. Lime + sugartop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,332 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Unripe figs
Provide the fruit that becomes firm, tender and translucent in the preserve.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and, as syrup, preserves it and helps it turn clear.
Lime
Its acidity firms the fig flesh during the lime soak, helping it hold its shape.
Carbonate of soda
Raises the alkalinity of the cooking liquid, softening the figs so they pierce easily.

The step that matters

Cooking the figs until soft enough to pierce. Cooking must be stopped when the figs are tender but still hold their shape. Overcooking breaks down the flesh, while undercooking leaves it tough and unable to absorb the syrup.

Swap the lime

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

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