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Dessert

Gooseberry Sauce

A sauce made from stewed gooseberries, sugar, butter, and breadcrumbs, strained and thickened to a creamy consistency.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 98,233 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Gooseberry Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gooseberries

  1. Remove tops and stems from the gooseberries and wash them.

  2. Stew the gooseberries in just enough water for 30 minutes until tender.

  3. Pass the pulp through a sieve.

Finish the sauce

  1. Add sugar to achieve a soft flavor without it being noticeable.

  2. Mix in butter and breadcrumbs, then pass through the sieve again.

  3. Adjust the thickness to that of double cream.

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 + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Green gooseberries
Provide the sharp, tart fruit base that gives the sauce its main flavor and body.
Sugar
Softens the gooseberries' tartness, adding sweetness to balance the acidity.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety mouthfeel to the sauce.
Breadcrumbs
Thicken the pulp, helping the sauce reach a body close to double cream.

The step that matters

Pass the pulp through the sieve. Gooseberry skins and seeds stay behind when the stewed fruit is pushed through, so the sauce comes out smooth. Skipping or rushing this leaves grainy texture.

“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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