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Baby Fig Spoon Sweet (Sikalaki) — Traditional Greek Fig Preserve Recipe

Mama makes her traditional recipes from memory, but when she needs a little help she pulls out her battered copy of Megali Mageiriki. The classic Greek cookbook looks very 1950s—faded photos and formal plating that aren’t especially appetizing—but the recipes are solid. Traditional Greek cuisine goes back centuries, and the book preserves many of those tried-and-true preparations.

With Zoe’s help I translated a recipe for candied baby figs (sikalaki gliko) from Megali Mageiriki. It calls for unripe figs, which have an advantage: birds tend to ignore them until they fully ripen. Once figs are ripe they’re often gone, so harvesting them young helps you outwit the birds—most of the time.

The original recipe didn’t specify a strict size for the unripe figs, so I picked a variety. The largest figs—nearly full-grown but not ripe—didn’t turn out well and I discarded them. The smaller and medium figs worked beautifully. My favorite are the medium ones because they have started forming seeds, which add a pleasant crunch to the soft texture.

Showing sizes of baby figs for sikalaki gliko, greek fig spoon sweet.

Ingredients

2 pounds unripe figs
3 pounds sugar
3 cups water
2 tablespoons lemon juice (approximately)
Cloves and/or vanilla, to taste

Rinse the figs and poke a hole in each one with a thick nail or a small screwdriver. Expect some sticky latex to ooze out; this step is naturally messy.

Poke hole in the figs for greek fig spoon sweet sikalaki gliko.

I found a small Phillips screwdriver easier to handle than a nail for making the holes. Once all the figs are pierced, place them in water and let them soak for a few hours.

Soaking figs for greek fig spoon sweet sikalaki gliko.

After soaking, boil the figs in plain water for 15 minutes.

Boiling figs for greek fig spoon sweet sikalaki gliko.

When 15 minutes are up, transfer the figs to cold water to cool, then drain.

Cooling figs for greek fig spoon sweet sikalaki gliko.

Discard the cooking water, refill the pot with fresh water, and repeat: boil the figs 15 minutes, cool in cold water, then drain again. This blanching process helps reduce bitterness and prepare the figs to absorb the syrup.

Next, make the syrup. Combine 3 pounds of sugar with 3 cups of water and bring to a boil for about 5 minutes. Add the drained figs to the syrup.

Boil figs in syrup for greek fig spoon sweet, sikalaki gliko.

Boil the figs in the syrup for 15 minutes, then turn off the heat and leave the figs in the syrup for 12 hours to rest and absorb flavor. After resting, remove the figs and continue boiling the syrup until it thickens to your desired consistency.

Boiling syrup to thicken it for the greek recipe sikalaki gliko, fig spoon sweet.

Return the figs to the thickened syrup, add lemon juice and a few cloves or a splash of vanilla to taste, and simmer a few more minutes until the syrup is well thickened and glossy. Pack the hot figs and syrup into clean jars and seal.

Jar of greek fig spoon sweet, sikalaki gliko.

Note: cookware and utensils will get sticky with fig latex. You may need abrasive scrubbing powder to remove residues; nonstick pans are likely to be difficult to clean thoroughly, so use pots and strainers that can withstand a good scrubbing.