Sweet Fasting
Green fig preserve
Small green figs boiled through nine changes of water, then set in syrup and offered to guests by the spoonful.
Recipe from Туѓино Јабано
- Prep
- 12 hr 30 min
- Cook
- 1 hr 30 min
- Total
- 14 hr
- Fasting
- Suitable
Ingredients 5 ingredients
Method
- Pull the stalks off the figs and prick each one right through in four or five places with a darning needle. The syrup enters where the needle went.
- Put the figs in a deep pan, cover with cold water and bring to the boil. Boil for one minute, drain, and cover again with fresh cold water.
- Repeat that boiling and draining nine times in all, until the water runs clear and no longer carries the milky sap. This is the whole of the recipe; cut it short and the preserve stays bitter.
- Tip the figs into a colander, let them drain properly and cool a little.
- Bring the sugar and the 250 ml of water to the boil in a wide pan, stirring only until the sugar has dissolved.
- Slide the figs into the boiling syrup with the cloves and simmer for 30 to 40 minutes, skimming, until the figs are dark and translucent and the syrup coats the back of a spoon.
- Slice the lemon thinly, stir the slices through and take the pan off the heat.
- Cover the pan with a damp cloth and leave it for 12 hours so the figs finish drawing in the syrup, then jar it and seal.
If you cannot find it
Substitutions that work outside Macedonia.
- Small unripe green figs
- The hardest small figs a Balkan, Turkish or Greek grocer has in June; ripe supermarket figs collapse in the syrup.
- Green figs out of season
- Firm quince cut into thick fingers, cooked the same way but with a single change of water instead of nine.
