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Fig's Eabs

A dish of boiled figs with onions, carrot, salt, pepper, and optional sausage or truffles, broiled with bread crumbs and served with butter or gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Fig's Eabs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the figs

  1. Soak the figs in warm water for a few minutes.

  2. Wash and clean the figs, scraping off any skin.

  3. Boil the figs in water for 2 minutes.

  4. Add onions, carrot, salt, and pepper to the boiling figs. Leave enough water to cover them and drain when cooked.

Coat and broil

  1. For broiling, dip the prepared figs in beaten eggs. Roll the figs in bread crumbs. Broil the figs on a grill for 2-3 minutes.

  2. For stuffed figs, remove the long bone. Fill the figs with sausage meat or truffles. Dip the stuffed figs in melted butter and egg yolk. Roll the stuffed figs in bread crumbs. Broil the stuffed figs.

Serve

  1. Serve with melted butter, jelly, or gravy.

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. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. White wine + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Fig + carrottop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together37 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Figs
Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender and sweet when cooked and broiled.
Eggs (in the method)
Beaten eggs and egg yolk help the coating set and bind the crumbs to the figs.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned outer coating when broiled.
Onions
Add savory flavour to the figs as they simmer in the cooking water.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Drain the figs after boiling. Leaving the figs in the cooking water too long can make them waterlogged and soft, so the coating will not crisp well under the broiler.

Swap the fig

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, carrot, pepper, white wine, butter, bread, meat):

  1. Lemonfits about as well
  2. Plumfits about as well
  3. Figthe original
  4. Grapefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, carrot, pepper, white wine, butter, bread, meat. 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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