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Sauce

Gooseberry C&Tsup

A sauce of gooseberries cooked with sugar, vinegar and spices, strained if desired and stored in a jar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,806 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Gooseberry C&Tsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and cook

  1. Wash and stem the gooseberries.

  2. Combine gooseberries, sugar, and vinegar in a pot.

  3. Add spices to taste.

  4. Cook over medium heat until the mixture thickens.

Finish and store

  1. Strain if desired and store in a jar.

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. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Gooseberries
Provide the fruit base and natural pectin that helps the ketchup thicken as it cooks.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and body, and helps preserve the ketchup while thickening it.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness and helps preserve the ketchup.

The step that matters

Cook until the mixture thickens. Gooseberries contain natural pectin, and the mixture thickens as water evaporates and the pectin and sugar set. Stopping too early leaves it runny, while overcooking can make it stiff and sticky.

“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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