Name: Compote of Green Gooseberries
Ingredients: ½ pint water; 5 ounces granulated sugar; 1 pint gooseberries

Compote of Green Gooseberries

Ingredients

½ pint water
5 ounces granulated sugar
1 pint gooseberries

Directions

Make the syrup

In a saucepan, combine water and sugar. Boil gently for 10 minutes, then skim off any foam.

Cook the fruit

Add the washed and drained gooseberries to the syrup. Simmer gently for 8 to 10 minutes.
Serve immediately, as the compote is best consumed within 2 to 3 days.

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

Granulated sugar: Sweetens the compote and helps the syrup thicken as the fruit cooks.
Gooseberries: Provide the fruit and tart flavour that the sugar balances.
Water: Dissolves the sugar to form the syrup the fruit simmers in.

“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.