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Gooseberries

Preserves gooseberries by soaking them in a boiled alum solution and bottling them.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Gooseberries

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the alum bath

  1. Dissolve the roche alum in a large pan of boiling hard water.

  2. Place a few gooseberries in a hair sieve.

  3. Hold the gooseberries in the water until they turn white.

  4. Remove the sieve.

  5. Spread the gooseberries between two cloths.

  6. Repeat the process with more gooseberries until all are done.

  7. Transfer the water into a glazed pot.

  8. Let the water sit until the next day.

Bottle and store

  1. Place the gooseberries into wide-mouthed bottles, discarding any cracked ones.

  2. Pour the clear water from the pot into the bottles.

  3. Cork the bottles loosely.

  4. Let the bottles stand for a fortnight.

  5. Check if the gooseberries rise to the corks.

  6. If they do, uncork the bottles for two or three days.

  7. Cork them tightly again.

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

What each ingredient does

Roche alum
Firms the gooseberry skins, helping the fruit keep its shape during preserving.
Gooseberries
The fruit being preserved; its skins are what the alum firms and holds together.

The step that matters

Holding the gooseberries in the alum water until they turn white. Alum works by firming the fruit's pectin and cell walls. Holding the fruit in the solution for too short a time leaves it soft, while leaving it too long can over-harden it, so watch for the white colour change.

“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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