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Rhubarb with Figs
Wash half a pound of bag or pulled figs and cook in boiling water to cover until the water is nearly absorbed. Skin and cut a pound of rhubarb in one-inch pieces. Put a layer in a baking dish, sprinkle with sugar, add a layer of figs, repeat until all is used; put in one-fourth cup of hot water and bake in a slow oven until the rhubarb is soft.
Dates or raisins may be used in the same manner.
A simple layered bake that depends on the figs going in already softened, since dried fruit will not hydrate in a quarter cup of water. Everything else in the original is straightforward once the vocabulary is translated.
- Slow ovenRoughly 300F. Expect 40 to 50 minutes for one-inch rhubarb pieces. The original does not say to cover the dish, though covering will keep the small amount of liquid from drying out.
- "Bag or pulled figs"Both are dried figs: bag figs were a cheaper grade shipped in bags or mats, while "pulled" figs are generally described as flattened and stretched by hand. Any dried Mission or Smyrna fig works; half a pound is roughly 1 1/2 cups whole.
- Pre-cooking the figsSimmer them in just enough water to cover until nearly all of it is taken up, roughly 15 to 20 minutes, then drain and slice or halve. Skipping this leaves leathery fruit in a finished dish.
- "Skin" the rhubarbField rhubarb of the period had coarse outer strings worth pulling off. Modern forced or hothouse stalks rarely need it; trim the ends and cut into one-inch lengths.
- Sugar is unspecifiedThe original only says to sprinkle each layer. For a pound of rhubarb, 3/4 to 1 cup of sugar total is the usual range; the figs contribute their own sweetness, so start at the lower end and taste the syrup once it has cooked down.
- LeavesRhubarb leaves are not food and should never go into the dish. Use the stalks only, which is what the recipe means by a pound of rhubarb.
- LiquidA quarter cup of hot water looks like too little. Rhubarb releases a great deal of juice as it collapses, and adding more produces soup rather than a compote.
- Yield and servingMakes about four servings: chill and serve in glasses with cream, or spoon over plain cake. The original says dates or raisins "may be used in the same manner," so give them the same treatment as the figs.
Rhubarb was the first fruit of the year in northern kitchens, and it is often said that this is why so many turn-of-the-century recipes pair it with dried fruit as well as sugar. Figs, dates and raisins arrived by ship and kept well in the pantry, so a household in April could combine something just pulled from the garden with something bought months before; the dried fruit adds body and sugar while the rhubarb supplies the acid. Grades of dried fig were still sold by name in this period, "pulled" and "bag" figs being cheap cooking grades well below the layered pressed figs meant for the table. Serving the finished dish cold was standard for stewed and baked fruit long before the recipe would have been called a compote.