PRESERVES.
To make clear, good preserves requires: 1st. No economy of trouble; 2d. That the fruit be perfectly fresh, alive from the tree or bush, or, as a friend says, “tasting of the sun.”
The French make the clearest, best preserves, because they spare no pains. They first prepare their sirup or clarified sugar; then, after neatly and carefully paring or dressing their fruit, cook a few pieces at a time, or only as many as they can oversee, carefully lifting each piece out of the sirup the moment it is done. How they preserve strawberries in bottle (each little bottle of which sells for seventy-five cents), retaining the full flavor and almost the firmness of the fresh strawberries, is something for me to investigate.
I consider the peach marmalade the most valuable preserve, as it is useful in preparing desserts. It is a good sauce for almost any kind of pudding, especially corn-starch and rice puddings. Preserves are generally made too sweet. Before hermetically sealed cans or jars were in general use, it required a large quantity of sugar to keep the preserves from fermenting. Now, in using cans, one can suit the taste as to the sweetness of the preserve. I prefer tin cans to glass bottles, as sometimes the bottled jelly or preserves will ferment, requiring a second cooking. Tin cans have never failed me. Others prefer bottles, having no trouble, they say, in tightening them perfectly. The citron preserve, flavored with root ginger and lemon, is a success. It has the flavor of the ginger preserve from the West Indies, which is so fashionable, expensive, and serviceable as an accompaniment for ice-cream, etc.; it is also inexpensive.
Apples preserved with a flavor of lemon and ginger are particularly nice also; of course, they are not as firm as citron, and do not imitate so well the ginger preserve. The outside of the water-melon (skinned) makes a clear, pretty preserve, flavored in the same manner. The next in favor is the greengage preserve, which is as clear and beautiful as it is delicate in flavor. Peaches, unless made into marmalade, are better when canned with very little sugar than when preserved. Canned peaches, half-frozen when served, make a delicious dessert with cake.
First, then, for preserves the sirup must be made. I give the old rule; yet, as before remarked, if canned, they may be made less sweet. I generally use half a pound of sugar to a pound of fruit.
Sirup for Preserves.
Put two pounds of the best white sugar, with one pint of fresh, clear water, into a white porcelain saucepan; put it on the fire, and before the sirup becomes hot mix well into it the partly beaten white of an egg. When it begins to boil, remove the scum as it rises; watch it constantly that it does not boil over; and continue to boil it until no more scum rises.
Now peach, pear, greengage, Siberian crab-apple, and cherry preserves are all made in the same manner. The peaches are neatly peeled, stoned, and halved. The pears are peeled, cored, and cut into two. The greengage makes a prettier preserve without being skinned—pricking them, and halving the stem. The French preserve greengages in this manner. Some think the skins of plums are tough in preserves, and throw them into boiling water to skin them. The Siberian crab-apple, which makes a very good preserve, is cored with a small tin tube or corer ([see page 57]). Half of the stem is cut from cherries. When the sirup is gently boiling, a few pieces are put into it at one time. They are boiled until they become just soft. Do not allow them to break. When the pieces are done, take them carefully out, and put more into the sirup until all are cooked; pour the sirup over, and put them into jars.