Modern cookery, in all its branches

Compotes will remain good for two or three days in a cool storeroom, or somewhat longer, if gently boiled up for an instant a second time ; but they contain generally too small a proportion of sugar to preserve them from mould or fermentation for many days. The syrup should be enriched with a larger quantity when they are intended for the desserts of formal dinners, as it will increase the transparency of the fruit : the juice is always beautifully clear when the compotes are carefully prepared. They should be served in glass dishes, or in compotiers , which are of a form adapted to them. Compote of spring fruit. — (Rhubarb). Take a pound of the stalks after they are pared, and cut them into short lengths ; have ready a quarter of a pint of water boiled gently for ten minutes with five ounces of sugar, or with six should the fruit be very acid ; put it in, and simmer it for about ten minutes. Some kinds will be tender in rather less time, some will require more. Obs. — Good sugar in lumps should be used for these dishes. Lisbon sugar will answer for them very well on ordinary occasions, but that which is refined will render them much more delicate. Compote of green currants. — Spring water, half-pint: sugar, five ounces ; boiled together ten minutes. One pint of green currants stripped from the stalks ; simmered five minutes. Compote of green gooseberries. — This is an excellent compote if made with fine sugar, and very good with any kind. Break five ounces into small lumps and pour on them half a pint of water ; boil these gently for ten minutes, and clear off all the scum ; then add to them a pint of fresh gooseberries freed from the tops and stalks, washed, and well drained. Simmer them gently from eight to ten minutes, and serve them hot or cold. Increase the quantity for a large dish. Compote of green apricots. — Wipe the down from a pound of quite young apricots, and stew them vei'y gently for nearly twenty minutes in syrup made with eight ounces of sugar and three-quarters of a pint of water, boiled together the usual time. Compote of red currants. — A quarter of a pint of water and five ounces of sugar : ten minutes. One pint of currants freed from the [chap. XXIII, stalks to be just simmered in the syrup from five to seven minutes. This receipt will serve equally for raspberries, or for a compote of the two fruits mixed together. Either of them will be found an admirable accompaniment to a pudding of batter, custard, bread, or ground rice, and also to various other kinds of puddings, as well as to whole rice plainly boiled. Compote of Kentish or Flemish cherries. — Simmer five ounces of sugar with half a pint of water for ten minutes ; throw into the syrup a pound of cherries weighed after they are stalked, and let them stew gently for twenty minutes : it is a great improvement to stone the fruit, but a larger quantity will then be required for a dish. Compote of Morelia cherries.— Boil together for fifteen minutes, six ounces of sugar with half a pint of water ; add a pound and a quarter of ripe Morelia cherries, and simmer them very softly from five to seven minutes : this is a delicious compote . A larger proportion of sugar will often be required for it, as the fruit is very acid in some seasons, and when it is not fully ripe