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Preserve

To Preserve Greengages

A method for preserving greengages by soaking, boiling with alum, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Plum and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,313 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

To Preserve Greengages

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the plums

  1. Pick the greengages when they are full grown and nearly ripe.

  2. Soak the greengages in cold water for 24 hours.

  3. Lay vine leaves in the bottom of a clean pan.

  4. Remove the greengages from the water and place them in the pan, covering them with water.

  5. Sprinkle a pinch of powdered alum over the plums and heat the pan on a clear fire.

  6. When the plums rise to the top, remove them and place them in a bowl with a little fresh warm water.

Firm and scald

  1. Clean the pan, add fresh vine leaves, and return the plums to the pan.

  2. Cover the plums with boiling water and add a small pinch more powdered alum.

  3. Cover the pan with a cloth and let it stand for 15 minutes.

Sugar and cook

  1. Remove the plums from the water, weigh them, and measure out the same weight of double-refined pounded sugar.

  2. Place the plums in a clean pan, sprinkle the sugar over them, add a little water, and boil slowly until the fruit looks green and transparent.

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. Plum + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,313 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

What each ingredient does

Greengages (plums)
Fruit that is preserved; its flesh softens and turns translucent as it cooks in syrup.
Powdered alum
Firms the fruit's flesh so it holds its shape during soaking and cooking.
Double-refined pounded sugar
Preserves the fruit and sweetens it as it cooks into a syrup.
Vine leaves
Line the pan, helping to keep the fruit green and firm during cooking.

The step that matters

Boil slowly until the fruit looks green and transparent. Boiling gently lets sugar penetrate the fruit gradually, so it turns translucent and keeps its shape. Boiling hard can break the skins and collapse the plums.

“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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