Gooseberry Paste
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the pulp
Gather ripe rough red gooseberries, removing tops and tails.
Place the berries in a jar, cover with a bladder, and boil in a pot of water until soft.
Pour off the thin juice and rub the gooseberries through a fine sieve with a wooden spoon.
Make the paste
Add slightly more than half the weight of the pulp in pounded loaf sugar and mix.
Boil until it reaches a jelly consistency, about two hours, stirring and skimming as needed.
Transfer to a dish and serve cold with cream.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Rough red gooseberries
- Provide the fruit pulp that forms the body and tart flavour of the paste.
- Pounded loaf sugar
- Sweetens the pulp and, as it cooks down, helps the paste set to a jelly-like firmness.
The step that matters
Boiling to a jelly consistency. Sugar and pectin in the fruit set as water evaporates, so the paste must be cooked long enough to thicken. Stopping early leaves it runny, while overcooking can make it stiff and sticky.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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