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Dessert

Stewed Figs

A sweet stew of figs simmered with sugar, orange rind, lemon juice, and optional port wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Stewed Figs

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Boil together the sugar and enough water to dissolve it.

Stew the figs

  1. Add the figs and orange rind to the pot.

  2. Cook very slowly for about 2 hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in the juice of the lemon before serving.

  2. Serve hot with rice or cold with cream.

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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  3. Fig + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together407 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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 sweet fruit flavour as they soften during slow cooking.
Brown sugar
Sweetens the dish and adds caramel notes as it dissolves into the cooking liquid.
Orange rind
Adds a fragrant citrus aroma that complements the figs.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness of the figs and sugar.

The step that matters

Cook very slowly. Gentle, low heat lets the figs soften evenly without bursting or breaking apart, and keeps the sugar syrup from scorching on the bottom of the pot.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against fig, sugar, orange, 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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