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Dessert

Green Gages Preserved in Syrup

Green gages are preserved 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: Walnut and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 26% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,147 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Green Gages Preserved in Syrup

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gages

  1. Cut the stalks of the gages about half an inch from the fruit.

  2. Soak the gages in cold water with the alum.

  3. Heat the gages on a slow fire until they simmer.

  4. Remove the gages from heat.

  5. Place the gages in cold water and drain.

Make the syrup

  1. Pack the gages tightly in a preserving pan.

  2. Cover the pan with clarified sugar.

  3. Simmer the gages for 2-3 minutes.

  4. Let the gages sit in an earthen pan overnight.

  5. Drain the gages.

  6. Boil the syrup with more sugar until thick.

  7. Add the gages back to the syrup.

  8. Simmer for 3 more minutes; repeat for two days.

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

Pot and seal

  1. Place the gages in glasses.

  2. Pour syrup over the gages.

  3. Once cooled, cover the gages 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. Walnut + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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 sweetened by the syrup.
Clarified sugar
Thickens into a syrup that preserves the fruit and gives it sweetness.
Alum
Firms the fruit's flesh so it holds its shape during repeated simmering.

The step that matters

Repeated simmering and resting in syrup. Heating fruit too hard or too long can break it apart. Gentle simmers spaced over days let sugar slowly replace the water in the fruit, so it keeps its shape and becomes 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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