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Dessert

Pig Preserves

A preserve made by soaking fruit, boiling with sugar syrup, and sealing while hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
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Pig Preserves

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Soak the fruit in weak, warm soda water until the skins can be removed.

  2. Peel the fruit.

Make the preserves

  1. Make a syrup with the sugar and water.

  2. Drop in the figs.

  3. Boil until tender and clear, removing impurities as they rise.

  4. Take out the figs.

  5. Boil the syrup until thick.

  6. Return the fruit.

  7. Bring to a boil.

  8. Seal while hot.

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

What each ingredient does

Grown fruit
Provides the flesh that softens and absorbs the syrup as it cooks.
Sugar
Sweetens the preserves and, at high concentration, helps preserve the fruit and thicken the syrup.

The step that matters

Boil the syrup until thick. Sugar must reach a high concentration to thicken the syrup and keep the fruit preserved. Under-boiled syrup stays thin and is more likely to spoil after sealing.

“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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