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Fig Pickles

A pickled fig preserve made by boiling figs in vinegar, sugar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Fig and peach share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 45 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Fig Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine vinegar, sugar, and spices in a kettle.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Add figs to the boiling mixture.

  4. Cook slowly for 2 hours.

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 + peachtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together45 recipes

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

  2. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + figtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,241 recipes

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

  4. Vinegar + peachtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together348 recipes

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

  5. Vinegar + figtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together243 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
Form the bulk of the pickle and absorb the syrup, becoming tender and flavorful as they cook.
Sugar
Sweetens the pickle and, as it dissolves into the vinegar, helps build a thick syrup that preserves the fruit.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and helps preserve the pickled figs.

The step that matters

Cook slowly for 2 hours. Simmering gently lets the figs soften and absorb the syrup evenly without breaking apart. Boiling hard can split the fruit and scorch the sugar on the bottom of the kettle.

Swap the peach

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Pearfits about as well
  4. Peachthe original

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