Another happy country day here at Autumn Cottage, making use of the fruits of Autumn - this time, utilising the quince fruits from the flowering quince bush , Chaenomeles, (rather than the fruits from the Quince tree, Cydonia oblonga ) in the front garden to make five pounds of quince jam/paste. The result is delicious, but quite tart - I think it will go well with cold meats & cheeses as well as being spread on granary bread with butter.
I uses about 4 pounds of quince, sliced them up roughly (aren't they beautiful when cut in half? Sketchbook here, I think!), saved some seeds, then covered them barely with water and brought them to the boil for an hour, until they were very soft - mashing them with a potato masher to help the breakdown.
Then I pushed the pulp through a sieve, to remove the skin and pips (putting the residue on the compost heap - nothing wasted). For every pint of pulp, I added 12 oz. sugar and heated these ingredients together, bringing the jam to a rolling boil. Then - as before - the crinkle test, reached after the jam had coloured a dark reddish brown (quince jelly, dripped through a jelly bag rather than sieved cooks to a garnet red) finally potting up in jam jars heated on the top of the stove.
There are, apparently, "more recipes for the use of quinces than any other orchard fruit" in old English cookery books. If you are interested in reading more about the historical processing of this, and other foodstuffs, you might like to visit this wonderful historic food site - miniaturists who enjoy making mini foods will also find heaps of
inspiration there. Enjoy!
The Historic Food site is fascinating, I'm really interested in Medieval, Tudor and Stuart domestic life and cookery but the price of the courses would put me off when it doesn't even include accommodation. Have you ever been there? The quince paste sounds nice and looks like rather fiddly work to prepare. Worth it when you come to eat it in the winter though.
Posted by: Rowan | Thursday, September 21, 2006 at 12:08
Roz....aha so thats what they look like...youre right about the skletchbook when cut in half - that caught my eye immidiately and I thought...that would make a great sketch!
I shall look out for some at the markets next week.
Posted by: krissie | Thursday, September 21, 2006 at 12:26
You are well prepared for winter now Roz :-)
Posted by: Britt-Arnhild | Thursday, September 21, 2006 at 16:26
So glad to hear that someone besides me loves making jams and jellies that they get from the fruit of the land. What I wouldn't give for a jar of your quince jam!
Smooches!
Posted by: Boyd | Thursday, September 21, 2006 at 19:56
I got about 2 kg of flowering quinces from my mum yesterday, and need to make some jam soon. Thanks for the recipe!
Posted by: Pille | Sunday, September 09, 2007 at 19:03