Preserved Pumpkin
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the pumpkin
Obtain a good sweet pumpkin; halve it, remove the seeds, and pare off the rind; cut into neat slices or pieces about the size of a five-shilling piece.
Weigh the pumpkin, put the slices in a pan or deep dish in layers, sprinkling sugar between them.
Pour the lemon juice over the top, and let the whole remain for 2 or 3 days.
Cook and preserve
Boil altogether, adding 1/4 pint of water to every 3 lbs of sugar used until the pumpkin becomes tender.
Transfer the whole to a pan, where let it remain for a week.
Drain off the syrup, boil it until it is quite thick.
Skim, and pour it, boiling, over the pumpkin.
(Optional) A little bruised ginger and thinly pared lemon rind may be boiled in the syrup to flavour the pumpkin.
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. See the original page.
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Pumpkin (in the method)
- Forms the bulk of the preserve and becomes tender and translucent through cooking.
- Sugar (in the method)
- Sweetens the pumpkin and, as syrup, preserves it by drawing out moisture.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and helps the pumpkin hold its shape.
The step that matters
Boiling the pumpkin until tender. Sugar syrup firms and preserves the pumpkin, but if it is not cooked through the pieces stay fibrous. Stop when tender, since prolonged boiling can break the pieces down.
“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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