fresh fig conserve

This is the final day and the final recipe in my seven days of posts for Pickles & Preserves Week.

If you’re interested in the past six days of cooking, how about trying
Grapefruit, Rosewater & Vanilla Marmalade
Pickled Eggs
Apricot Jam
Pickled Cauliflower
Peach & Cinnamon Preserve
Pickled Grapes

And yet I believe I have saved the best til last!

I have had a good run with figs this autumn. Usually they’re too expensive to buy and when I do they don’t have much flavour. But this year I bought them from a grocer in the centre of the city where every individual piece of fruit is wrapped in tissue paper (the way I imagine it is in Japan) and you pay through the nose for fruit you just know will be good.

But even better I found a street stall where, on Friday when the grocer was packing up for the week, I bought a bucket of figs for $1!

And so I made this conserve.

I adore it. Just adore it!

The figs are so intense and the seeds give the jam a gorgeous nuttiness. It has become my absolute favourite jam.

Fresh Fig Conserve
Recipe by Kurma Dasa. Made 4 x 300ml jars.
Ingredients:
1kg fresh ripe figs
4 scant cups sugar
1⁄3 cup lemon juice (approx. 2 large lemons)
2 teaspoons packed lemon zest
2 tablespoons water, if required
Method:
1. Wash the figs and cut off their tips. If the figs are small, cut them in half; if they are large, cut them in quarters.
2. Spread the sugar on a tray and heat it in a pre-heated hot oven, taking care not to burn it.
3. Place the figs in a 5-litre/quart saucepan along with the lemon zest and lemon juice over moderate heat.
4. Bring them to the boil and cook them for about 10 minutes, or until they soften and the syrup darkens to a rich red colour. Do not stir them, and do not allow the figs to break up. You may need to add a little water.
5. Remove the sugar from the oven, and gently stir it into the figs, being careful not to rupture them.
6. When the sugar has dissolved, bring the mixture to a rapid boil and, without stirring, cook for another 10 minutes, or until the setting point is reached.
7. Carefully ladle the conserve into sterilised jars and invert until a vacuum seal is created.
Kurma’s note: Because my figs had been frozen then thawed, they gave off a lot of syrup, so I added 50 grams of pectin, a natural jam setting agent, at the time I added the sugar. The result was spectacular.
Anna's variation: my sugar has been infused with a vanilla pod a few days before using.

I am submitting this recipe to a new blogging event, Putting Up, celebrating jams, conserves, jellies, marmalade, curds, butters, chutneys, pickles, relishes and preserves!!!

The hosts are Pixie from You Say Tomahto, I Say Tomayto and Rosie from Rosie Bakes a Peace of Cake and I am really looking forward to the recipes the round-up will reveal!


Tags: morsels and musings food blog food and drink australia recipes fig conserve fig jam fig conserves conserve jam conserves recipes fig recipes conserve recipes jam recipes