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To Preserve Green Gooseberries in Imitation of Hops

A method for preserving green gooseberries by layering them with vine leaves, boiling with sugar syrup, and repeated heating.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Walnut and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 26% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,147 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

To Preserve Green Gooseberries in Imitation of Hops

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gooseberries

  1. Cut the gooseberries at the stalk end into quarters, leaving them whole at the blossom end.

  2. Remove all seeds from the gooseberries.

  3. Group five or six gooseberries together and tie them with a strong thread.

Green them

  1. Place a large handful of vine leaves in the bottom of a pan.

  2. Layer the gooseberries with vine leaves in between.

  3. Cover the pan tightly.

  4. Add cold spring water to the pan.

  5. Set the pan on a slow fire.

  6. Once the water is scalding hot, remove the pan from heat.

  7. Let the contents cool completely.

  8. Repeat the heating and cooling process until the gooseberries are a good green color.

  9. Drain the gooseberries in a sieve.

Make the syrup and preserve

  1. Make a syrup by boiling 1 pound of sugar in 1 pint of water, skimming well.

  2. When the syrup is half-cold, add the gooseberries.

  3. Let the mixture sit overnight.

  4. Boil the gooseberries once a day for three days.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Walnut + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Gooseberries
Form the fruit that is preserved; their firm flesh holds shape through repeated heating.
Vine leaves
Lend tannins that help keep the gooseberries firm and a green color during heating.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the fruit and, as a thick syrup, preserves it by drawing out water.

The step that matters

Repeat the heating and cooling until green. Heating in water softens the fruit and can turn it brown, so the pan must stay off the boil and be cooled fully between rounds. Stop once the color is right to avoid overcooking the fruit.

“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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