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Dessert

Bottled Gooseberries

A method of preserving gooseberries by bottling them, wrapping in hay, and cooling in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
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Bottled Gooseberries

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Place the gooseberries into bottles immediately after picking, leaving the bud and stalk intact.

  2. Cork the bottles tightly.

Heat and cool

  1. Wrap the bottles in hay and place them in a pot of cold water.

  2. Bring the water to a boil.

  3. Remove the pot from heat, leaving the bottles in the water until it cools.

Store

  1. Store the bottles buried in the ground or in a cool place.

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

Gooseberries
Form the fruit that is preserved, keeping its flesh and juices inside the sealed bottle.
Hay
Cushions the bottles in the pot so they are held steady and do not knock together while heating.

The step that matters

Leaving the bottles in the water until it cools. Cooling slowly in the water lets the bottles settle gradually, so sudden temperature change does not crack them or pull air back into the sealed jar.

“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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