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Dessert

Stewed Figs

A dessert of figs stewed in sugar, lemon rind, water, and port wine, served cold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Fig and port wine work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 24 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Stewed Figs

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. In a saucepan, combine sugar, lemon rind, and cold water. Stir until the sugar dissolves.

Stew the figs

  1. Add the figs and place the saucepan over low heat to gently stew.

  2. Cook for 2 to 2.5 hours until the figs are tender.

  3. Stir in the port wine and strained lemon juice.

Serve

  1. Serve the figs cold in a glass dish.

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 + port winetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Lemon + figtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together763 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + figtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,241 recipes

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

  4. Turkey + port winetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexyl acetate (fruity, apple).

  5. 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
Provide the main body and soft, tender texture as they stew in the syrup.
Refined sugar
Sweetens the syrup and helps create its body and gloss.
Port wine
Adds depth, aroma and a fruity sweetness to the finished syrup.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness and balances the flavour.

The step that matters

Gentle stewing over low heat. Low, slow heat lets the figs soften evenly and become tender without breaking apart or scorching the sugar syrup at the base of the pan.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Pearfits better
  2. Applefits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, turkey, fig, port wine. 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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