Makes 1.7kg
500g gooseberries, topped and tailed
5 organic unwaxed limes (approx 375g)
1Kg sugar
5Tbsp elderflower cordial (optional)
Place berries in a pan with 700ml water, simmer untill fruit starts to burst. Wash then chop limes roughly and remove any pips. Blitz in a food processor to a chunky puree. Put all ingredients into preserving pan, stir over low heat till sugar dissolved. Bring to rapid rolling boil and maintain until setting point reached (10-15mins). Pour into sterilised jars and seal.
The gooseberry bushes in my preserving garden allotment are still in their infancy and I'm not expecting much fruit from them until next year. The main thing is that they have settled in and are growing well. They are a great fruit for preserving on account of their high pectin levels, so work well in combination with other lower pectin fruits, like strawberries and rhubarb, to give jam a good set.
I can't really say they are my favourite berry but they are useful and robust, with a heritage stretching back to the Georgian times. Gooseberries are a fruit made of stern stuff, traditionally grown for exhibiting by Lancashire's pre-industrial weavers, who made their cultivation a speciality, breeding varieties with increasingly larger fruits. I've planted the variety Whinham's Industry, a red gooseberry with a name that harks back to mid 19thC Northumberland and that just happens to be a particularly good one for preserving, too.
My gooseberries have grown well apart from one bush, which had an attack of gooseberry sawfly. This annoying pest is harboured in the soil beneath the bush and manifests as a mass of tiny caterpillars that can defoliate the plant overnight. They don't kill the plant but weaken it by degrees. During the course of the growing season you can expect three flushes of these grubs. Breaking the cycle is the problem here and the solutions offered are varied with nothing totally foolproof. A single bush could not warrant the cost of applying an expensive organic nematode so I resorted to the laborious 'pick the grubs off by hand and squash 'em' method, which was a time consuming and prickly business but seems to have worked for the time being. Training bushes to grow from a leg and to be open branching at the base is supposed to help. Any more suggestions and remedies gratefully received?
I have had a small harvest this year so devised a recipe requiring a relatively small amount of fruit. It began as a jam but packs enough of a punch so have renamed it marmalade instead.
500g gooseberries, topped and tailed
5 organic unwaxed limes (approx 375g)
1Kg sugar
5Tbsp elderflower cordial (optional)
Place berries in a pan with 700ml water, simmer untill fruit starts to burst. Wash then chop limes roughly and remove any pips. Blitz in a food processor to a chunky puree. Put all ingredients into preserving pan, stir over low heat till sugar dissolved. Bring to rapid rolling boil and maintain until setting point reached (10-15mins). Pour into sterilised jars and seal.
The gooseberry bushes in my preserving garden allotment are still in their infancy and I'm not expecting much fruit from them until next year. The main thing is that they have settled in and are growing well. They are a great fruit for preserving on account of their high pectin levels, so work well in combination with other lower pectin fruits, like strawberries and rhubarb, to give jam a good set.
I can't really say they are my favourite berry but they are useful and robust, with a heritage stretching back to the Georgian times. Gooseberries are a fruit made of stern stuff, traditionally grown for exhibiting by Lancashire's pre-industrial weavers, who made their cultivation a speciality, breeding varieties with increasingly larger fruits. I've planted the variety Whinham's Industry, a red gooseberry with a name that harks back to mid 19thC Northumberland and that just happens to be a particularly good one for preserving, too.
My gooseberries have grown well apart from one bush, which had an attack of gooseberry sawfly. This annoying pest is harboured in the soil beneath the bush and manifests as a mass of tiny caterpillars that can defoliate the plant overnight. They don't kill the plant but weaken it by degrees. During the course of the growing season you can expect three flushes of these grubs. Breaking the cycle is the problem here and the solutions offered are varied with nothing totally foolproof. A single bush could not warrant the cost of applying an expensive organic nematode so I resorted to the laborious 'pick the grubs off by hand and squash 'em' method, which was a time consuming and prickly business but seems to have worked for the time being. Training bushes to grow from a leg and to be open branching at the base is supposed to help. Any more suggestions and remedies gratefully received?
I have had a small harvest this year so devised a recipe requiring a relatively small amount of fruit. It began as a jam but packs enough of a punch so have renamed it marmalade instead.
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