Easy Fig Jam-Perfect Compliment to Recipe
The first step in this recipe is to take a can of whole figs. I would recommend using about 12-14, give or take. Dump the entire can into a small saucepan and add about 2 cups of water. Add 1 cup of sugar and stir until it’s all dissolved, then bring that to a boil. It would help if you had most of the liquid evaporated after about 10 minutes or so at medium heat.
The reason for doing this in the saucepan is that you don’t scorch anything, though you could reduce the risk by constantly stirring while boiling and keeping an eye out for any spots where it might be starting to brown.
Once it’s about at a rolling boil, take the heat off and let the figs cool down in the syrup. When they’re cool enough to handle (not hot), use a slotted spoon to scoop all of them into a bowl and mash them up. Set that aside while you bring 1 cup of sugar to a boil with 2 cups of water, then stir in your fig pulp until everything is dissolved. I had just enough leftover fig liquid that I was able to dissolve this without adding anything extra. If you still have some leftovers (it should be much less than what you started with), I would pour them into a bowl and save them if you want more later.
Set up a small strainer (or colander) over a bowl and pour the liquid into it. As it drains, you’ll have more juice than you started with, which should be enough to make another batch. I’m sure there are other ways to make this by doing it on a stovetop, but this has always worked for me.
If all else fails:
If you can’t get or don’t want to use the juice from canned whole figs, you could use something like entire dried dates in its place. I would substitute about 400g of dates for around two cans of whole figs. This is just a guess, and it might be too sweet, I don’t know. If you try it and find that it’s way too sweet, you could reduce the sugar content to 1/3 cup or less.
If you want a jam with more texture:
If you want to have more of a “traditional” fig jam (with chunks of figs instead of just sauce), simmer your figs in the saucepan until they are broken down enough for your liking. If that isn’t enough, I would also simmer them while mashing them up as much as possible.
