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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: Fig and white wine share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and 29 recipes mention both. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Also mentioned in the method: egg yolk, egg

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Fig + white winetop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together29 recipes

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

  2. Butter + breadtop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together27,145 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together14,555 recipes

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

  4. White wine + buttertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together5,039 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Onion + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together21,599 recipes

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

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.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

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

  1. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  2. Tomatobetter flavor fit
  3. Potatobetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fig, carrot, pepper, white wine, butter, bread, meat. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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