TO PRESERVE PEARS.
Take large fine juicy pears that are all perfectly ripe, and pare them smoothly and thin; leaving on the stems, but cutting out the black top at the blossom end of the fruit. As you pare them, lay them in a pan of cold water. Make a thin syrup, allowing a quart of water to a pound of loaf-sugar. Simmer the pears in it for about half an hour. Then put them into a tureen, and let them lie in the syrup for two days. There must be syrup enough to cover them well. After two days, drain the syrup from the pears, and add to it more sugar, in the proportion of a pound to each pint of the thin syrup. Stir in a very little beaten white of egg, (not more than one white to three or four pounds of sugar,) add some fresh lemon-peel pared thin, and set the syrup over a brisk fire. Boil it for ten minutes, and skim it well. Then add sufficient lemon-juice to flavour it; and put in the pears. Simmer them in the strong syrup till they are quite transparent. Then take them out, spread them to cool, and stick a clove in the blossom end of each. Put them into glass jars; and having kept the syrup warm over the fire while the pears were cooling, pour it over them.
If you wish to have them red, add a little powdered cochineal to the strong syrup when you put in your pears.
BAKED PEARS.—
The best for baking are the large late ones, commonly called pound pears. Pare them, cut them in half, and take out the cores. Lay them in a deep white dish, with a thin slip of fresh lemon-peel in the place from which each core was taken. Sprinkle them with sugar, and strew some whole cloves or some powdered cinnamon among them. Pour into the dish some port wine. To a dozen large pears you may allow one pound of sugar, and a pint of wine. Cover the dish with a large sheet of brown paper tied on; set it in a moderate oven, and let them bake till tender all through, which you may ascertain by sticking a broom twig through them. They will be done in about an hour, or they may probably require more time; but you must not let them remain long enough in the oven to break or fall to pieces. When cool, put them up in a stone jar. In cold weather they will keep a week.
To bake smaller pears, pare them, but leave on the stems, and do not core them. Put them into a deep dish with fresh lemon or orange-peel; throw on them some brown sugar or molasses; pour in at the bottom a little water to keep them from burning; and bake them till tender throughout.
TO PRESERVE GOOSEBERRIES.
The best way of preserving gooseberries is with jelly. They should be full grown but green. Take six quarts of gooseberries, and select three quarts of the largest and finest to preserve whole, reserving the others for the jelly. Put the whole ones into a pan with sufficient water to cover them, and simmer them slowly till they begin to be tender; but do not keep them on the fire till they are likely to burst. Take them out carefully with a perforated skimmer to drain the warm water from them, and lay them directly in a pan of cold water. Put those that you intend for the jelly into a stew-pan, allowing to each quart of gooseberries half a pint of water. Boil them fast till they go all to pieces, and stir and mash them with a spoon. Then put them into a jelly-bag that has been first dipped in hot water, and squeeze through it all the juice. Measure the juice, and to each pint allow a pound and a half of loaf-sugar. Break up the sugar, and put it into a preserving kettle; pour the juice over it, and let it stand to melt, stirring it frequently. When it has all dissolved, set it over the fire, put the gooseberries into it, and let them boil twenty minutes, or till they are quite clear, and till the jelly is thick and congeals in the spoon when you hold it in the air. If the gooseberries seem likely to break, take them out carefully, and let the jelly boil by itself till it is finished. When all is done, put up the gooseberries and the jelly together in glass jars.
Strawberries, raspberries, grapes, currants or any small fruit may in a similar manner be preserved in jelly.