Preserved Green Gages
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fruit and syrup
Prick each fruit with a needle to prevent bursting and leave a portion of the stem on for appearance.
Make a syrup by combining 6 pounds of sugar with 1½ cups of water.
Dissolve ¼ ounce of isinglass in warm water and add it to the syrup.
Boil the syrup and skim off any foam.
Cook and preserve
Wash the kettle, return the syrup to it, and add the fruit.
Boil until the fruit looks clear when held up to the light.
Remove each gage one at a time, strain the syrup, and place the fruit in jars.
Pour the warm syrup over the fruit and seal the jars the next day.
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
- Provide the fruit that is pricked, simmered and set in the syrup.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the fruit and, at this concentration, helps preserve it by drawing out water.
- Isinglass
- Gelatinous fining agent that helps the syrup set and keeps the fruit clear and firm.
The step that matters
Boil until the fruit looks clear. Boiling in the syrup lets sugar slowly replace water inside the fruit, so it turns translucent. Stopping too early leaves fruit opaque and less preserved; boiling too hard can break the skins and tear the fruit.
“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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