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Green Gages Preserved in Syrup

A preserved fruit made by simmering green gages in clarified sugar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Green Gages Preserved in Syrup

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gages

  1. Take the gages when nearly ripe and cut the stalks about half an inch from the fruit.

  2. Soak them in cold water with a lump of alum the size of a walnut.

  3. Heat them on a slow fire until they simmer.

  4. Remove them from heat and place them in cold water.

  5. Drain the gages.

Make the syrup and steep

  1. Pack them tightly into a preserving pan.

  2. Pour enough clarified sugar over them to cover.

  3. Simmer for 2-3 minutes.

  4. Set aside in an earthen pan until the next day.

  5. Drain the gages again.

  6. Boil the syrup with more sugar until thick.

  7. Add the gages back to the syrup.

  8. Simmer for 3 more minutes.

  9. Repeat this process for two days.

  10. On the final day, boil clarified sugar until it reaches a blow stage.

Jar and cover

  1. Place the gages into jars.

  2. Pour the syrup over them.

  3. Once cooled, cover with a bladder.

  4. Cover with leather.

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 + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Green gages
Provide the fruit that is softened and preserved in the syrup.
Alum
Firms the fruit's texture so it holds its shape during repeated simmering.
Clarified sugar
Covers the fruit and, as a thick syrup, preserves it and adds sweetness.
Additional sugar
Thickens the syrup so it coats the fruit and helps preserve it.

The step that matters

Repeated simmering and steeping over two days. Simmering and resting in syrup over several days lets sugar slowly replace water in the fruit, which keeps it firm and preserved. Simmering too hard or too briefly can break the fruit down or leave it under-preserved.

“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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