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Dessert

Spiced Gooseberries

A preserved gooseberry dish flavored with sugar, vinegar, cinnamon, allspice, and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Spiced Gooseberries

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the gooseberries

  1. Place the gooseberries in a kettle with half of the sugar and a little water.

  2. Boil for 1 to 1½ hours.

  3. When nearly done, add the remaining sugar.

Finish with spices

  1. Remove from heat and stir in the spices and vinegar.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Vinegar + allspicetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,548 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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 bulk and tart flavour that the whole preserve is built on.
Sugar
Adds sweetness, balances the tartness, and helps the fruit thicken as it cooks.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the fruit and sharpens the spiced flavour.
Cinnamon
Contributes warm, sweet aroma to the finished preserve.
Allspice
Contributes warm, peppery aroma that rounds out the spice blend.
Cloves
Contributes strong, pungent aroma; a small amount goes a long way.

The step that matters

Boil for 1 to 1½ hours. The fruit must cook long enough for the skins to soften and the mixture to thicken as water evaporates and the sugar concentrates. Stopping too early leaves a runny result, while overcooking can scorch the sugar on the bottom of the kettle.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, vinegar, cinnamon, allspice):

  1. Clovethe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Gingerfits less well
  4. Cardamomfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar, cinnamon, allspice. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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