Tree Tomatoes, Chinese Gooseberries

New Zealand Listener, Volume 29, Issue 740, 18 September 1953, Page 22

Tree Tomatoes, Chinese Gooseberries

OTH these fruits are plentiful and popular. Chinese gooseberries are often just cut in halves and eaten out of the skin with a small spoon, like eating an egg from the shell, a delicatelyflavoured fruit and very juicy. Children love them. Have you noticed the pretty pattern the slices show? These look quite charming arranged over the icing on a cake, or over the creamy top of a trifle, with cherries dotted in between. Have them firm enough to peel thinly, and then slice. They are also used in fruit salads’, and even as a decoration for a cold custard, or a red jelly, which has been set, perhaps in a ring-mould; and the centre filled with orange pieces sprinkled with chopped walnuts. Bottled Chinese Gooseberries Have large, firm Chinese gooseberries. Wash them first, to remove as much hairy outside as possible. Then peei them and put into a colander, and let the cold water tap run over them to make sure no outside furriness remains. Have ready your pan of boiling syrup, in the proportion of 2 cups water to 1 cup sugar, boiled together till clear, probably 10 minutes. Now put in the peeled whole gooseberries and let them simmer gently till soft, watching carefully. Also have ready a quantity of passion fruit pulp just gently simmering in a smal] saucepan-no water, just the scooped out pulp. Now take each hot sterijised jar and about half-fill with the boiling gooseberries, then pour in a little simmering passion pulp, then all up to over-flowing ‘with more gooseberries and seal each one immediately. Work fast. The passion fruit will work through the gooseberries without stir-ring-which would cause delay. To make a change from passion fruit flavouring, add a fresh pineapple (not canned)? just chopped up and sprinkled with sugar overnight, and ‘then brought to boil for a few minutes and added, still simmering, to the boiling gooseberries as described for the passion ‘pulp. ’ Bottled Tree Tomatoes These are delicious, and are done in the usual way. Skin first by immersing in boiling water a few minutes, as for ordinary tomatoes. Make a fairly heavy syrup} in the proportion of 3 cups water to 14% cups sugar, boiled till clear (about 10 minutes). Then put in the skinned fruit and simmer slowly till tender, but not mushy. Try with a steel knitting needle. Bottle in usual way, in hot ‘sterilised bottles, sealing each one as you fill it. The golden-yellow tree to-. matoes are especially delicious done this way. Tree Tomato Dessert Skin the fruit as usual, cut in halves or slices and sprinkle well with sugar. Leave to stand some hours, or even overnight if wanted for breakfast, and serve plain or with cream, Cooked: The nicest way is to bake them slowly in a covered casserole, skinned, and sliced, with plenty of sugar a not quite covered with water, Eat hot or cold. Or stew very slowly in covered pan. Serve th cream or custard sauce. Tree Tomato Savoury Besides frying them, in thin slices, to serve with the breakfast bacon, try this | vegetable savoury. Skin sufficient tree tomatoes and slice rather thickly. Chop finely about one-third as much onion,

and cook in a little butter, without browning. Add tree tomatoes and simmer together till’ soft, seasoning to taste with pepper

and salt and a little sugar, Then add a few spoonsful left-over gravy, or stock flavoured with meat essence or marmite, and thicken to taste with soft breadcrumbs. This makes a veéegetable dish with stewed kidneys or fried kidney and bacon, or liver and bacon, or sausages. Chinese Gooseberry Jam Cut gooseberries in half, scoop out pulp. Cover bottom of pan with water. Add fruit pulp and. boil ‘till cooked. Then add % Ib. sugar to every 1 Ib. pulp. Stir till dissolved and boil till it will set when tested. Vary by cooking in lemon juice and water. Chinese Gooseberry and Orange Four and a half pounds Chinese gooseberry pulp, 4%4 Ib. sugar, juice and grated rind of 8 sweet oranges, the same of 2 lemons. Stir till sugar is dissolved, then boil all together until jam will set when tested. Tree Tomato Jam Three pounds tree tomatoes, 1 Ib. green apples, peeled and minced, 4 Ib. sugar, juice 1-2 lemons. Scald tomatoes to peel, cut up, put with apples in pan with 2 teacups water, and bring to the boil. Add sugar, and boil till it will set, about an hour. Add lemon juice; bottle hot. Tree Tomato and Choko Six pounds chokos, 1 large lemon, 4 lb. tree tomatoes, 9 lb, sugar. Peel and cut the chokos small. Skin tree tomatoes, slice lemons finely, and put all on to boil with 1 pint of water, and cook unti] tender-about 1% hour. Then add sugar, stir till dissolved, and boil until it sets.