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Pickled Figs

A pickled fig recipe using sugar, vinegar, cloves, cinnamon, mace, and unripe figs.

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

Make the pickling liquid

  1. Combine 2 pounds of sugar with 1 quart of vinegar in a pot.

  2. Place cloves, cinnamon, and mace in a bag and scald them in the vinegar mixture.

Pickle the figs

  1. Pour the hot vinegar mixture over the figs for three consecutive mornings.

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. Cinnamon + figtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together614 recipes

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

  3. Clove + figtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together404 recipes

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

  4. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Cinnamon + macetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the figs and gives the pickle its tang.
Figs
The main fruit; it softens and takes up flavour from the hot pickling liquid.
Cloves
Contributes a warm, pungent aroma to the pickling liquid.
Cinnamon
Contributes a sweet, woody aroma to the pickling liquid.
Mace
Contributes a delicate, warm aroma to the pickling liquid.

The step that matters

Pouring the hot vinegar mixture over the figs each morning. Heat and the hot sugar-vinegar liquid soften the not-quite-ripe figs and help them absorb flavour. Repeating the pour on three mornings lets the pickle build gradually, so the fruit is fully covered each time.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

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