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
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the gages
Take the gages when nearly ripe and cut the stalks about ½ inch from the fruit.
Soak them in cold water with ½ cup of alum until they simmer on a slow fire.
Remove from heat and place in cold water, then drain and pack them tightly in a preserving pan.
Make the syrup and preserve
Pour enough clarified sugar over the gages to cover them and simmer for 2-3 minutes.
Set aside in an earthen pan until the next day, then drain the gages.
Boil more sugar with the syrup until thick, then add the gages and simmer for 3 more minutes.
Repeat this process for two days.
On the final day, boil clarified sugar until it reaches a blow stage, then place the gages in jars and pour the syrup over them.
Seal and dry
Once cooled, seal with a bladder and leather.
For drying, drain and dry them on a wire sieve in a slow oven.
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.
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Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked 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
- The main fruit, which holds its shape and firmness through repeated syruping.
- Alum
- Firms the fruit's tissue so it holds together during soaking and simmering.
- Sugar
- Preserves the fruit and forms the thick syrup that sweetens and sets it.
The step that matters
Soaking in alum. Alum firms the fruit's tissue so it keeps its shape. Simmering only until the gages just soften, rather than longer, helps prevent them from breaking down.
“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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