Monthly Archives: October 2011

quince paste/membrillo

Posted on October 28, 2011 by admin| 5 Comments

 membrillo 3

It’s no secret, not least because of my previous post, that I adore quinces. The way they change colour on cooking, their richly honeyed fragrance, their mallowy texture, their ambrosial flavours – is there a fruit more bewitching?

This year I’ve been lucky to benefit from a kind neighbourly donation – our 3 new trees are yet to produce a crop – and so, like a child in a playroom, I seized on them eagerly, and bundled them off to the kitchen.

I’ve recently bought a copy of @AlysFowler’s already well-received book, The Thrifty Forager (worth putting on your Christmas list), so I decided to give her recipe a trial run. I’m happy to report that it worked like a dream.

Here it is, with a few tiny tweaks:
about a kilo of quinces (I peeled and cored mine)
water
1 vanilla pod (I didn’t use this)
lemon juice and rind of one lemon, cut into strips
granulated sugar (I used unrefined caster)

Place fruit in a large pan, adding just enough water to cover the fruit. Bring to a gentle boil and simmer until tender – about 20-30 minutes.

Strain the juice through a jelly bag overnight (you can then use this for jelly). Put the remaining pulp through a sieve or mouli (I simply mashed mine thoroughly), then add the vanilla, if using, and lemon juice, rind, and sugar – the same weight of sugar as pulp.

Return the pan to the heat and bring slowly to the boil, stirring constantly until the sugar dissolves. Once the sugar has dissolved, increase the heat, and bring to a rapid boil until it reaches setting point – the paste will feel thick and scrape clean away from the edge of the pan. This will take about 30-45 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat, and pour the paste onto greaseproof paper on a baking tray to dry. (I used a tray 6in x 10in x 1in, which was the perfect size.)

At this point, Alys recommends leaving the paste to air dry for several days – it should be slightly shiny and sticky to touch. I accelerated the process by putting the tray in a cool oven (no higher than 100C) for 3 hours, and then leaving in a cupboard overnight.

The paste is then ready to wrap in greaseproof paper and to store in an airtight container in the fridge.

I turned mine out…

membrillo 1

… and then cut it into 5 slabs of roughly equal size.

membrillo 2

 ”It will last for many months kept like this,” says Alys. To which I say – not in my household. Eat it with manchego or, if you want to stay loyal to these shores, Sussex-made Lord of the Hundreds.

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Posted in fruits, jams, preserves, chutneys

a time for quince

Posted on October 19, 2011 by admin| 2 Comments

quince

Ah, Autumn! Perhaps the season most associated with England, it’s also the time of year which induces usually sane, serious types to drift off into daydreams of Keatsian ‘mists and mellow fruitfulness’, and with good reason.

Autumn is, of course, the time associated with bountiful harvest, and with orchard trees laden with apples and pears. But it’s also the season for the lesser-known and sadly less available fruits associated with old England, quinces.

Although grown and eaten in the UK since around the thirteenth century, the quince has been almost completely forgotten and neglected in the past few decades. Happily, it is now enjoying something of a revival, thanks to renewed interest in locally produced foods and hitherto forgotten or neglected recipes.

The redoubtable Jane Grigson, who knew a thing or two about food, called the quince ‘the best of all fruits’, and current influential food writers, like Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Nigel Slater, have championed the quince’s cause in recent years.

River Cottage’s principal gardener, Mark Diacono, seems set to continue the trend with his already acclaimed new book, A Taste of the Unexpected, in which he, too, celebrates the joys of both growing and eating quince.

So just what is it about the quince that inspires such adoration?

It all starts with the quince’s fragrance: as Diacono says, it seduces with its ‘sweet, spicy perfume… If they were inedible, I’d grow them for this alone’. But the fruit’s main secret is surely the hedonistic pleasures it releases on cooking, wherein lie magical transformations.

First, the flesh turns from off-white to vivid pink or even ruby. Then there’s the texture, which changes from a rock-like hardness to something akin to a very ripe pear. It is easy to eat, readily falling apart on the first bite, with a succulence all its own. And finally, the all-important taste? That, too, changes – from inedibly bitter to something between an apple and a pear, but more intense and honeyed, and more heavenly, than either.

In short, if you’ve never tried quince, you’ve been missing out. In fact, this hallowed fruit should be on every food lover’s list of 100 things to try before they die – not least because once you’ve tasted quince, I guarantee you that you’ll want to eat it again. And again. And again.

If you are lucky enough to come across quinces, you’ll find a plethora of culinary uses for them: from jams and jellies, through savoury dishes (braised with pork belly, for example), to puddings and cakes.

Think of quince jellies and jams, and quince paste might come to mind, often seen in the shops as Spanish membrillo.

Actually, quince paste, or ‘marmalade’, has been made in England since at least the eighteenth century, by which time it was already a standard household recipe. Florence White’s seminal book, Good Things in England, carries one such version, dating from the early part of that period, from an unnamed Worcester cook.

Is it too much to hope that, in these days of demand for local produce, we might see a return of English-made quince paste? It would be cheering to think so. And a great match for quince paste, while we’re on the subject of provenance, is another English product, not unlike Spanish manchego – the nutty Sussex-made ewe’s milk cheese, Lord of the Hundreds. Eat the two together for a tapas-like snack. I’ll be posting a picture or two on here shortly.

In cakes and desserts, use quinces wherever you might ordinarily use apples or pears – they marry fantastically well with other autumnal fruit, and also with spices redolent of times past, such as cloves, vanilla, ginger, cinnamon, and nutmeg – and prepare to be amazed at the difference.

Poached simply in water and sugar until changed in colour and tender, or roasted until rosy and soft, it’s fabulous eaten in its own syrup, or else – if you really must – with cream, crème fraîche, or yogurt. Either way, you might want to take the precaution of eating solo, because this is one treat you won’t want to share.

An extended version of this post first appeared at: www.francoisemurat.com

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grape and cardamom conserve

Posted on October 10, 2011 by admin| 5 Comments

Churchyards hold an enduring fascination for me. I cherish their stillness, but it is those who have gone before that intrigue me most. The tombstones speak of lost loves, richly and barely-lived lives, and longed-for reunions. To me, they are at once sorrowful,  life affirming, and beautiful.

My local churchyard has an additional appeal. All summer long, the sprawling blackberry bushes and elderflower trees which run along its perimeter walls have provided generous pickings for those who live here. But the other day, I noticed these rambling leaves, reaching out over two ancient graves:

church vines

Vines. And the more I looked, the more I saw. Extending from behind the churchyard wall, their tangled mass hid bunches and bunches of these purple-blue beauties underneath the foliage:

church grapes

Sadly, they appeared to be going to waste. I made a quick enquiry of the churchwarden, then a neighbour, and later that same balmy afternoon I was able to pick 2.5kg of the juiciest, sweetest grapes I think I have ever come across in this country.

church grapes haul

A quick trawl through trusted jam recipes gave me two to try: a conserve, and a jelly. I was drawn particularly to the conserve, since these precious little fruits – not much larger than big blueberries – seemed to me worth celebrating by keeping largely whole, or as whole as the jamming process allows.

I followed a Marguerite Patten recipe again, adding my one of my favourite spices, cardamom, to taste. This is my slightly edited version:

Grape conserve
450g grapes
450g sugar
2 tablespoons lemon juice (necessary only if the grapes are sweet and ripe)
cardamom, to taste

If necessary, remove the pips carefully by slitting the grapes with a sharp, pointed knife. Add the sugar to the fruit and allow to stand for up to 2 hours to let the juice flow, especially if the grapes are barely ripe, or underripe. Stir over a low heat until the sugar has dissolved. Add the lemon juice, if using, and cardamom. Raise the heat and boil steadily until setting point is reached. Allow to cool slightly, then stir to distribute the fruit, spoon into hot, sterilised jars, and seal down. 450g grapes should yield about 750g conserve.

grape conserve

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Posted in fruits, jams, preserves, chutneys

crabapple cascade

Posted on October 4, 2011 by admin| 2 Comments

golden crabapples

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Posted in fruits