A few weeks ago some choice Quinces arrived at my favourite Wells Fruit and Veg stall up on the Mendips. The display was small but with perfect large fruit, and I was fortunate to visit on a day when they had them. After paying, I carefully laid my two large fruit on the top of my full basket so as to bring them home in pristine condition. With their sensuous shape and colour and still partly covered with their fur, they were laid in pride of place in the centre of the dining table and much admired over a couple of weeks or so.
If you have had quinces before, you learn to observe them for the moment of maturity to arrive. Having cooked with them before you also know just how hard the fruit are and just how long they take to cook. I was not in the right frame of mind to go on and be inspired to make up a dish to do them justice. Not wanting them to be wasted I decided to cook them and freeze the fruit and the decision on what to do with them pushed further down the line.
On my chopping board I simply cut the washed fruit, into segments, removed the central part where there tends to be the larger grittier parts, and place the unpeeled fruit chunks in a stainless steel dish with a little lemon juice and just a little water. This I put onto the trivet in the pressure cooker with a little water in the bottom and gave them about eight minutes. In the cooking period the fruit had turned from its creamy colour to a beautiful translucent muted deep peachy colour. A knife test said fine, and when cooled the whole dish covered went into the freezer.
I needed the space and out from the freezer came the cooked fruit a couple of days ago to defrost gently in the fridge, with its skin so soft it would have been pointless removing it. Quince Cheese is all that I felt like making. For once I didn't feel inspired to make anything with flavourings or spices, but with the finest shavings of a Sicilian lemon rind and its juice, with sugar in the ratio of 450g sugar to 600ml pureed fruit, as per Marguerite Patten. The fruit was pureed down with the stick blender, and then the melange patiently stirred until a thick consistency was achieved.
I can't remember when I had my first taste of quince or when I first saw my first quince tree, but its existence must have seeded itself perhaps through poetry or through reading historical novels. My eye is drawn to them in old tapestries, Japanese art and Botanical drawings and I love the beauty of the trees as well as the flowering quince shrubs, which is a totally different type of plant;
In gardens I seem to be able to spot them and admire them at any time of the year, however when hanging with golden fruit they are easy to spot. I remember the beautiful trees at Kelmscott Manor during a delightful visit with my friends from Kenilworth WI. At Kenilworth Castle there were some young trees planted on the bank at the approach to the formal gardens which I used to admire almost weekly.
My fried Penny (RIP) would bring me some lovely fruit from her garden, and I cannot pass a quince but remember her.
Quince Prepared for the Freezer November 2015
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