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To Preserve Green Gages

Preserves green gages by layering with vine leaves, boiling in hard water, then cooking in a sugar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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To Preserve Green Gages

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gages

  1. Weigh the green gages and use 1.5 pounds of sugar for each pound of fruit.

  2. Layer fresh vine leaves in a porcelain preserving kettle, followed by a layer of gages, and repeat, finishing with vine leaves on top.

  3. Fill the kettle with hard water and set it over low heat.

  4. When the gages float to the top, remove them, peel, and place them on a sieve.

  5. Replace the gages in the kettle with fresh vine leaves and water, covering tightly to prevent steam from escaping.

  6. Hang the kettle above the fire to heat slowly for six hours without boiling.

  7. Once the gages are a fine green, remove and drain them on a hair sieve.

Make the syrup and preserve

  1. Make a syrup by boiling ½ pint of water for each 1.5 pounds of sugar until skimmed.

  2. Add the green gages to the syrup and boil gently for 15 minutes.

  3. Remove the gages and let them cool.

  4. The next day, boil them in the same syrup for another 15 minutes.

  5. Once cooled, transfer the gages and syrup into glass jars and seal with brandy paper.

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

Green gages
The main fruit, whose flesh softens and turns tender through gentle heating and syrup soaking.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the fruit and, as a thick syrup, preserves it by drawing out water.
Fresh vine leaves
Lining and layering leaves that keep the fruit separated and help protect its green colour during slow heating.

The step that matters

Heating without boiling. Holding the water just below a boil lets the fruit soften and colour evenly while keeping its skin intact. Boiling would break the fruit apart and cloud the syrup.

“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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