To Dottle Gooseberries
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare and bottle
Pick green walnut-gooseberries.
Bottle them and fill the bottles with spring water up to the neck.
Heat and seal
Cork them loosely and set them in a pot of hot water until heated through.
Remove from water and let cool, then cork tightly and tie a bladder over the cork.
Store
Store in a dry, cool place.
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
What each ingredient does
- Green walnut-gooseberries
- The fruit being preserved, which is kept whole and firm in the bottle.
- Roche alum
- Helps the fruit keep its firmness during preserving.
- Spring water
- Fills the bottles around the fruit, so it is covered in liquid.
The step that matters
Heating until heated through, then cooling before corking tightly. Corking loosely lets air escape while the bottles warm. As they cool, the contents contract and draw air out, so a tight cork seals the bottle. Corking tightly before cooling, or skipping the heat, can leave the seal unreliable.
“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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