Doce De Abobora - Pumpkin (Squash) Sweets

Portugese
Um Tratado Da Cozinha Portuguesa Do Seculo XV
(A Text on Portuguese Cooking from the Fifteenth Century)
Translated by Jane L. Crowley


Find a very hard pumpkin (squash) and cut it into pieces the 
desired size and thickness, peeling and cleaning out the inside.

Then fill a shallow earthenware pan or bowl with cold water 
and add a handful of salt.

Before mixing the salt that is in the bottom, add an egg.  
When it comes to the surface, and all you can see is a little 
piece the size of a ten centavo coin, dissolve the salt with a wooden spoon.

Strain this rine and pour into a container with the pieces of 
pumpkin.  After soaking 24 hours, remove the pumpkin and put 
it immediately into cold water for 3 days, changing the water 
5 or 6 times a day.

After this period of soaking in cold water, check the  pumpkin.  
If it is still salty, let it soak for another three days, 
changing the water like before and boil it each day, and put 
the pumpkin in cold water again.  On the third day, finish 
cooking it completely until a pin goes through the pieces.

Remove the pumpkin from the water and let it drain well.  
Then put the pieces in a deep container, covering with a thin syrup.

For 15 days the pumpkin pieces should stay in the syrup, and 
every day just boil the syrup, leaving the pumping covered in 
a container of hot water.  Drain the water from pumpkin pieces 
well and then out them into the syrup.

While preparing this sweet, the syrup should be clarified with 
an egg white every other day, and strain daily before adding to 
the preserves.

After 15 days the preserves will be prettier if you add a new syrup 
on the last day.

1 medium green squash
2 cups of water
1 cup salt

Thin Syrup
1 lb of sugar
2 cups of water
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