Barberry Conserve is a traditional British recipe, based on Robert Kemp Philp's recipe of 1859, for a classic preserve made from barberries and sugar flavoured with fennel seeds that's cook until thick enough to set. The full recipe is presented here and I hope you enjoy this classic British version of: Barberry Conserve.
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This is a classic recipe for a Victorian version of Barberry Conserve that's derived from Robert Kemp Philp's 1859 volume, The Dictionary of Daily Wants. Below you will find both the recipe in its original form and a modern redaction.
The barberry (Berberis spp is a genus of about 450–500 species of deciduous and evergreen shrubs from 1-5 m tall with thorny shoots, native to the temperate and subtropical regions of Europe, Asia, Africa, North America and South America. Typically they bear bunches of pale yellow drooping flowers in May, which are succeeded by oblong scarlet berries, ripening in September. Several are popular garden shrubs, grown for their ornamental leaves, yellow flowers, and red or blue-black berries. They are also valued for crime prevention; being very dense, viciously spiny shrubs, they make very effective barriers impenetrable to burglars. For this reason they are often planted below potentially vulnerable windows, and used as hedges and other barriers. The berries are edible, and rich in vitamin C, though with a very sharp flavour; the thorny shrubs make harvesting them difficult, so in most places they are not widely consumed. Berberis thunbergii is one of the best for culinary use. They were frequently used in the Victorian era, as this recipe demonstrates They are still made into a candy in Estonia, Lithuania and the Ukraine (known as (Barberis). Berberis microphylla or Berberis heterophylla (Calafate) and Berberis darwinii (Michay) are two species found in Patagonia in Argentina and Chile and their edible purple fruit are used for jams and infusions. Zereshk (زرشک) is the Persian name for the dried fruit of Berberis vulgaris, which are widely cultivated in Iran. Zereshk is widely used in cooking, imparting a tart flavor to chicken dishes. It is usually cooked with rice, called zereshk polo, and provides a nice meal with chicken.Zereshk jam, zereshk juice, and zereshk fruit rolls are also produced in Iran.
Original Recipe
BARBERRY CONSERVE.—Take out the seeds from a pound and a half of very ripe barberries; put some water into a deep pan, and drop in the barberries as you seed them; then boil them with one ounce of pounded fennel, until the barberries are broken; afterwards press them in a sieve, so as to extract the juice from them, clean the vessel in which the barberries were first placed, and pour into it the juice just extracted from the fruit; add two pounds of boiled sugar, boil the whole together, remove from the fire, and stir with a spoon until the sugar bubbles up, then pour into moulds.
Add 200ml water to a pan then stir in the de-seeded barberries and the fennel seeds. Bring to a boil and continue cooking for about 25 minutes, or until the fruit have broken down and released their juices. Take off the heat and allow to cool a little then press through a fine-meshed sieve with the back of a spoon to extract as much of the fruit juice as possible.
Clean the pan then pour in the barberry juice and bring to a boil. In a separate pan, add the sugar and bring to a boil. As soon as the sugar is clear and boiling pour into the boiling barberry juice, stirring all the while.
Return to a boil then take off the heat and stir with a wooden spoon until the sugar bubbles up. Pour into moulds (ramekins are good) and allow to cool and set.
Barberries, 1 1/2lbs.; fennel seed, 1oz.; sugar, 2lbs.