Preserve (Tomato)

Instructions

1. Take six pounds of small preserving tomatoes and prick them with a steel pin.
2. Lay them in saltpetre water -- a tablespoonful of saltpetre in three quarts of water -- for ten minutes, then wash them clean.
3. Put them into a stewing-pan with an equal weight of sugar. Add half an ounce of dry ginger, just bruised in a mortar and tied in a muslin bag.
4. Let it simmer slowly till the sugar has melted, keeping the preserving-pan closed.
5. Then boil rather more quickly for an hour, till the tomatoes are clear.
6. Take out the ginger before corking the jar.