PUMPKIN, Preserved.
Ingredients.—To each lb. of pumpkin allow 1 lb. of roughly pounded loaf sugar, 1 gill of lemon-juice. Mode.—Obtain a good sweet pumpkin; halve it, take out the seeds, and pare off the rind; cut it into neat slices, or into pieces about the size of a five-shilling piece. Weigh the pumpkin, put the slices in a pan or deep dish in layers, with the sugar sprinkled between them; pour the lemon-juice over the top, and let the whole remain for 2 or 3 days. Boil altogether, adding ½ pint of water to every 3 lbs. of sugar used, until the pumpkin becomes tender; then turn the whole into a pan, where let it remain for a week; then drain off the syrup, boil it until it is quite thick; skim, and pour it, boiling, over the pumpkin. A little bruised ginger and lemon-rind, thinly pared, may be boiled in the syrup to flavour the pumpkin. Time.—From ½ to ¾ hour to boil the pumpkin tender. Average cost, 5d. to 7d. per lb. pot. Seasonable in September and October; but better when made in the latter month, as the pumpkin is then quite ripe.
Note.—-Vegetable marrows are very good prepared in the same manner, but are not quite so rich.