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 ↓
Turkish Ice Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Make the fig mixture
Boil the figs in a weak syrup for a few minutes.
Add the juice of the lemon.
Pass the mixture through a sieve.
Finish and chill
Mix the strained mixture with the cold custard.
Chill before serving.
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.
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Fig + lemontop 11% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together763 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Figs
- Provide the main fruit flavour, sweetness and body to the pudding.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that brightens the sweet fig flavour.
- Custard
- Adds richness and creaminess to the pudding base.
“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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