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To Jireferve Gooseberries

Preserved gooseberries made with sugar and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,939 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

To Jireferve Gooseberries

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Remove the stems and tops from the gooseberries.

  2. Layer gooseberries and sugar in a pot, starting with a layer of gooseberries.

Macerate and dissolve

  1. Let the mixture stand overnight in a cool oven.

  2. If the sugar is not dissolved, return to the oven for another day.

Cook and pot

  1. Transfer to a stew-pan, skim well, and boil for 30 minutes.

  2. Pour into pots and cover with papers dipped in brandy when cool.

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. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Sugar and brandy barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Gooseberries
Provide the fruit body, tartness and pectin that set the preserve as it cooks.
Loaf sugar
Draws moisture out of the fruit and acts as a preservative, giving sweetness and a firm set.
Brandy
Covers the pots as a surface layer that helps keep the preserve from spoiling.

The step that matters

Let the sugar fully dissolve before boiling. Undissolved sugar can crystallize and leave a grainy texture. Standing in gentle heat draws juice out of the fruit so the sugar dissolves before the boil.

“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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