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Dessert

Fig Preserves

A preserve made from ripe figs, sugar, water, lemons, and ginger.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,154 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Fig Preserves

Ingredients

Directions

Soak and cook the figs

  1. Weigh the figs and use the same weight in sugar.

  2. Cover the figs with cold water and let them soak for 12 hours.

  3. Simmer the figs in enough water to cover them until tender, then spread them on a sieve to cool.

Make the syrup

  1. Make a syrup with the sugar and 1 cup of cold water for every pound of sugar.

  2. Boil the syrup until clear of scum, then add the figs and simmer for 10 minutes.

  3. Remove the figs and spread them in the sun to dry.

  4. Add the lemons and ginger to the syrup, boil until thick, then give the figs another boil for 15 minutes.

Jar and seal

  1. Fill jars three-quarters full with figs, then top with boiling syrup, cover, and seal when cool.

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. Lemon + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Fig + gingertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together208 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

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

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

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

  5. Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

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

Sugar and ginger barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 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

Ripe figs
Provide the fruit that becomes tender and sweet as the preserve.
Sugar
Sweetens the preserve and draws water out of the figs so they keep.
Lemons
Add acidity that brightens the flavour and supports the set.
Ginger
Adds a warm, aromatic note to the syrup.

The step that matters

Boiling the syrup until clear of scum. Skimming off the foam while the syrup boils removes impurities so the preserve looks clear and tastes clean. Boiling the syrup to the right thickness also helps it hold and keep.

Swap the fig

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

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Mangofits better
  4. Figthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon, ginger. 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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