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Dessert

Spiced Gooseberries

A sweet and spiced preserve made from gooseberries, sugar, vinegar, cloves, cinnamon, allspice, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Spiced Gooseberries

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pick over the gooseberries and remove any damaged ones.

  2. Place the gooseberries in a porcelain kettle with a little water and part of the sugar.

Cook

  1. Boil for 30 minutes.

  2. Add the spices and the remaining sugar just before finishing.

Can and serve

  1. Pour into cans while hot and seal.

  2. Serve with meat.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Vinegar + allspicetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,548 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Gooseberries
Provide the main fruit body and tartness that the preserve is built around.
Sugar
Sweetens the preserve and helps it set and keep as it thickens.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and helps preserve the fruit.
Cloves
Contribute warm, aromatic spice flavour.
Cinnamon
Contributes warm, sweet spice aroma.
Allspice
Adds a warm, peppery spice note that blends with the fruit.

The step that matters

Adding the spices and remaining sugar just before finishing. Spices lose aroma and flavour when cooked for a long time, so adding them late keeps the scent fresh. Sugar added late is less likely to scorch or over-thicken the fruit before the preserve is done.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, vinegar, cinnamon, allspice):

  1. Clovethe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Gingerfits less well
  4. Cardamomfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar, cinnamon, allspice. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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