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magidA month or more ago, there was a LUrC email asking if people were interested in quinces. I was, and a few weeks later, they were available for pickup from the house of someone living out near Fresh Pond (the tree being out in the town of Harvard). I ended up with 19 pounds. (Now, if it had been 15 pounds, I might've figured out some bad pun with quinceanera....)
I hadn't dealt with quince before, though I'd read about them. They're fuzzy, but not at all like peaches or kiwi; defuzzing them was more like exfoliation under water than anything else.The flesh inside is very hard (and apparently astringent when raw; I didn't test this). Weirdly, the seeds and areas where seeds are (I don't know the name for it, but it's similar to how apples have little pods for seeds) have a hint of sliminess to them. Also, the smell is very floral, both when raw and cooked.
I used them in two batches. The first batch I chunked whole quinces into water with lemon juice, and let them cook a long while. Once it seemed cooked enough, I ladled out the plain liquid. That I cooked a bit with sugar, then canned, since quince are high in pectin. Unfortunately, my continual failure at pectin continued: I ended up with seven pints of quince syrup, not jelly. ::sigh::
The solid stuff leftover I put through a food mill to get a smooth puree without seeds or skin or anything else in it. I added sugar and cooked it down slowly toward quince paste (membrillo), slightly paranoid because all the online recipes are so loud about avoiding burning. The next day I put some of that into a baking pan to put in a barely-on oven, and most of the rest into a container to dry out without being put in the oven. I still haven't wrapped this up yet, but apparently it will last a year in the fridge.
For the rest of the quince, I peeled and pared the fruit, cutting it up to put in with more lemon-water, later adding cranberries, ginger, and the end of the sugar (plus later some honey, since I hadn't gotten more sugar) to make a batch of gingered cran-quince jam, six pints plus some for snacking on immediately.
I'm not sure quince will ever be a favorite fruit, but it is interesting to work with.
I hadn't dealt with quince before, though I'd read about them. They're fuzzy, but not at all like peaches or kiwi; defuzzing them was more like exfoliation under water than anything else.The flesh inside is very hard (and apparently astringent when raw; I didn't test this). Weirdly, the seeds and areas where seeds are (I don't know the name for it, but it's similar to how apples have little pods for seeds) have a hint of sliminess to them. Also, the smell is very floral, both when raw and cooked.
I used them in two batches. The first batch I chunked whole quinces into water with lemon juice, and let them cook a long while. Once it seemed cooked enough, I ladled out the plain liquid. That I cooked a bit with sugar, then canned, since quince are high in pectin. Unfortunately, my continual failure at pectin continued: I ended up with seven pints of quince syrup, not jelly. ::sigh::
The solid stuff leftover I put through a food mill to get a smooth puree without seeds or skin or anything else in it. I added sugar and cooked it down slowly toward quince paste (membrillo), slightly paranoid because all the online recipes are so loud about avoiding burning. The next day I put some of that into a baking pan to put in a barely-on oven, and most of the rest into a container to dry out without being put in the oven. I still haven't wrapped this up yet, but apparently it will last a year in the fridge.
For the rest of the quince, I peeled and pared the fruit, cutting it up to put in with more lemon-water, later adding cranberries, ginger, and the end of the sugar (plus later some honey, since I hadn't gotten more sugar) to make a batch of gingered cran-quince jam, six pints plus some for snacking on immediately.
I'm not sure quince will ever be a favorite fruit, but it is interesting to work with.
no subject
Date: 2013-11-06 11:57 pm (UTC)