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Dessert

Fig Preserves

A preserve made by cooking figs in a sugar syrup until thickened.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Fig and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 404 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Fig Preserves

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the figs

  1. Gather and carefully peel the figs.

Make the syrup and cook the figs

  1. In a pot, make a syrup by combining 2 pounds of sugar with 2 pounds of water and bring it to a boil.

  2. Drop the figs into the boiling syrup and cook until well done.

  3. Remove the figs and continue boiling the syrup until it thickens to the consistency of honey.

  4. Return the figs to the syrup and let it boil again.

Jar and flavor

  1. Seal the preserves in jars.

  2. If desired, add a clove to the blossom end of each fig or cook sliced lemon in the syrup for added flavor.

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 + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together404 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Clove + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  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 + 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 bulk, fruit flavor and soft texture of the preserves.
Sugar
Sweetens the preserves and, as the syrup thickens, helps them set and keep.

The step that matters

Thickening the syrup. As water evaporates, the sugar concentration rises and the syrup thickens. Stopping too early leaves a runny preserve, while boiling too long can make it overly stiff or cause sugar to crystallize.

Swap the clove

The recipe marks clove as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fig, sugar, lemon):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Peppermintfits better
  4. Clovethe original

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