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Green Gages Preserved in Syrup

Preserved 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 ½ cup of alum until they simmer over low heat.

  3. Remove from heat, place in cold water, and drain.

  4. Pack them tightly in a preserving pan.

Make the syrup and preserve

  1. Pour enough clarified sugar over the gages to cover them and simmer for 2-3 minutes.

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

  3. Drain the gages.

  4. Boil the syrup with more sugar until thick.

  5. Add the gages and simmer for 3 minutes.

  6. Repeat this process for two days.

  7. Boil clarified sugar until it reaches a blow stage.

  8. Place the gages in jars and pour the syrup over them.

Seal and dry

  1. Once cooled, seal with a bladder and leather.

  2. Drain.

  3. Dry them on a wire sieve in a slow oven.

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 preserved, holding its shape in the syrup.
Alum
Firms the fruit's flesh so it holds shape during soaking and simmering.
Clarified sugar
Preserves the fruit by drawing out water and forming a thick, sweet syrup.

The step that matters

Repeating the sugar simmering over two days. Sugar must gradually replace the water in the fruit. Simmering too hard or too briefly can toughen, shrivel, or leave the fruit under-preserved, so the repeated short simmers and resting periods matter.

“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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