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Gooseberry Vinegar

A fermented vinegar made from gooseberries, cold water, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Gooseberry Vinegar

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Bruise the gooseberries until broken.

  2. Combine the gooseberries and cold water in a container.

Steep and strain

  1. Let it stand for 2 days, stirring 3 times a day.

  2. Strain the mixture through a sieve, then through a flannel bag.

Sweeten and cask

  1. Dissolve the sugar in the strained liquid.

  2. Transfer to a cask and seal it.

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

What each ingredient does

Gooseberries
Provide the fruit flavour and the acidic base that the vinegar develops from.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and body, and feeds the fermentation that turns the liquid into vinegar.

The step that matters

Stirring during the 2-day standing. Stirring three times a day mixes air into the liquid and keeps the fruit in contact with it. Vinegar fermentation needs oxygen to proceed evenly, so skipping stirring can slow it or let the surface spoil.

“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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