I suspect I'm not the only one out there a bit overwhelmed by the progression of coronavirus, and the seemingly hourly updates of bad news from around the world. Yesterday I decided I needed to have a low key day here at Struan Farm to calm down, mostly.
I harvested more Golden Queen peaches and the first wave of quince, hooray.
As previously reported, John is not a big fan of quince. But he will eat quince paste, or "membrillo," with cheese and crackers. Like most fruit pastes, making it is tedious but worth the effort. I use the quinces that have on the tree cracked first, so they won't rot. And I use Kylee Newton's recipe for membrillo from "The Modern Preserver."
1.5kg of quince is peeled, cored and roughly chopped, then put into a pot with the peel of one lemon and a split vanilla bean and covered with cold water. Once this is brought to the boil it is left to simmer for 30-40 minutes, until the quince is tender. After draining, the vanilla bean is removed and fruit and lemon peel pureed in a food processor. This pulp then gets measured, and 150 grams of sugar is added into a pot for every 250 mls. of fruit pulp, along with the juice of that lemon.
Then the real fun begins: once the sugar is dissolved into the pulp this boils until the mixture coats the back of a wooden spoon. The recipe says 1- 1 1/2 hours, but sometimes it takes considerably less time. It should be stirred constantly to avoid burning and sticking. The thick pulp has a tendency to erupt, spewing hot globules around the kitchen. I've bought a screen mesh splatter guard to try to minimise the mess and hot flying paste, you could use a tea towel in a pinch. It's best to be prepared.
Once the paste has reached the right consistency it is poured into a lined, buttered loaf pan or buttered muffin tins and baked for 40-60 minutes at the lowest oven temperature possible, then cooled, wrapped and refrigerated. It will keep for months in the fridge.
p.s. I did watch the Democratic presidential debate and follow up commentary while doing this!
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