Gooseberry Crush - Gooseberry Syrup Concentrate

During the summer months, back home in India every house will have some sort of crush or syrup in their fridge. The most common being mango, grape or lemon crush. Crush for those not familiar to Indian crushes are actually fruit juice concentrates used to make a quick cold drinks by mixing with about 2-3 times the amount of ice cold water and served to guests and family members alike to quench their thirst. This is before the advent of sodas and packaged juices.

I had a bunch of gooseberries from the plants in the backyard. They are tart and sweet at the same time and can be enjoyed as such. They also make excellent jams and jellies and that is what I made with the first batch. The recipe for which is here. The recipe in the link is for jam but I made jelly this time. The difference between jam is jelly is that once the fruit is cooked, it is passed through the sieve to remove the skin and the seeds. The resulting juice is cooked with sugar till it sets. The gooseberries I had are the purple ones and they made an absolutely stunning pink colored jelly and of course delicious.'

With the second batch I was contemplating making some spicy thokku but changed my mind when the above mentioned crush came to mind. The color is absolutely adorable and the slightly sweet and tart fruit would make a perfect crush and juice. Once the syrup is made it becomes multipurpose. Can be used to make ice cold juices and as a topping for pancake.

Cook the gooseberries till they are soft and can be mushed with a spatula. Add sugar and let it cook till the syrup thickens.
Strain the syrup through a sieve.
Pour into glass battles and store in the fridge.

The only requirement for this is to have a good sieve to strain the syrup.

Gooseberry Crush - Gooseberry Syrup
Preparation Time:5 minutes
Cooking Time:30 minutes
Ingredients

1. 5 cups of ripe gooseberries
2. 2 cups of sugar
3. 3 cups of water

Method

1. In a heavy bottomed pan add the gooseberries and water and let it come to a boil and let it simmer till the fruit completely breaks down. Mash the fruit with a back of a spatula (About 15 minutes).
2. Add sugar and if the water is almost gone at this point, add about 2 more cups of water and let it cook for another 15 minutes. It should be a fairly thick syrup at this point.
3. Now strain the cooked syrup through the sieve. Press the pulp till you extract as much of the syrup as possible.
4. Pour them into bottles and store in the fridge till ready to use.
   

Make the Juice

1. Add 2 tbsp of the syrup along with 1 1/2 cups of water. Mix the syrup. Add ice cubes.
2. Adjust the quantity of syrup as per taste.

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