Which are really quite queer!
A colleague has a quince tree that is positively groaning with fruit and she brought some in for another workmate during the week and offered me some as well. I accepted fairly eagerly, telling her I'd never tried them and would be keen to. Well, she took me at my word and the nest day brought me a big bag of them - about fourteen or so absolutely huge specimens!
Last night I stewed up a couple and we had them with icecream. Offspring #1 and I thoroughly enjoyed them, Hubby thought they were okay but wasn't particularly enthusiastic, commenting that they tasted like something someone's Gran would cook. #2 provided her usual verdict of "Yuk!" so nothing really new there.
The uncooked quince is creamy-white in colour and the flesh is quite similar to that of of an unripe pear. The thing that's really special about them is that they turn the most gorgeous pinky-orange colour when they're cooked. Lovely.
I peeled and cored the quinces, sliced them up (in the same way you'd slice up apples for stewing) and put them into a saucepan. I sprinkled a couple of tablespoons of sugar over the top and added enough water to reach the top of the fruit. On advice from the quince-giver, I stewed them over a very low heat 'until they turned pink' which ended up being about an hour and a half (you might need to add more water while they're stewing), and by then they were lovely and soft and the water had combined with the fruit to turn into a delicious sticky syrup. Perfect for topping some icecream or, as I found out from facebook friend a little later in the evening, a Quince Cwumble.
After some serious googling my big plans for the long weekend are turning the rest of my booty into quince paste and quince jelly!
2 comments:
That looks super yummy. Let me know when you make the crumble and I'll dash over to taste test.....wouldn't want you to serve it up to your family if not quite right!
Mmmmm yum, quince paste! A friend came to visit the other day and she brought me some home made quince paste. Served with a really bitey cheddar on water crackers it was delicious!
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