Remove the tops and stems from one quart of gooseberries, wash and drain. Put them into a saucepan with barely enough boiling water to cover them. Let them stew until tender. Dissolve one cupful of sugar in one-half cupful of water and boil to a syrup, then mix it with the fruit and set away to cool.
Agate-nickel-steel ware is altogether the best in the market for stewing acid fruits. They should never be cooked in tin or in iron, and unless copper has just been cleaned with vinegar to remove all suspicion of verdigris, the use of it is dangerous. I can not say too much of the ware I have named. It is easily kept clean, durable and safe.
Hot green apple sauce
Utilize in this way early windfalls and unripe summer apples, proverbially dear to the heart of the small boy and harmful to his digestive organs.
Pare and slice thin with a silver knife or with a fruit-knife of Swedish bronze. The crude acid forms an instant and unpleasant combination with steel. As you slice, drop into cold water to keep the color. Cook in an agate-nickel-steel saucepan, with just enough boiling water to keep the apples from burning to the bottom. Fit on a close lid and do not open the pan for half an hour, lest the steam escape. Shake up, and sidewise, every ten minutes to insure uniform steaming. When the half-hour is up open the saucepan, and if the apples are soft rub quickly through a colander of the same ware with the saucepan. Beat in sugar to taste, also a lump of butter—about a tablespoonful to a quart of the stewed fruit; turn into a covered bowl and serve hot. Pass thin graham bread and butter with it.
It is wholesome, anti-bilious and palatable.
Cold apple sauce
Make in the same way of ripe, tart apples, a seasoning with mace or nutmeg to taste. When it has cooled set on ice until wanted.
Stewed apples
Pare and core a dozen tart, juicy apples. Put them into a saucepan with just enough cold water to cover them. Cook slowly until they are tender and clear. Then remove the apples to a bowl, and cover to keep hot; put the juice into a saucepan with a cupful of sugar, and boil for half an hour. Season with mace or nutmeg. Pour hot over the apples and set away covered until cold. Eat with cream.