All Things Quince

Including a recipe for quince cheese/membrillo

I come to you with bruised and aching limbs. When I started writing this a week ago, the 45mph winds (which unusually seems to be happening very regularly at the moment) had just knocked a few more quince to the ground. I have been using the tree as a handy but imperfect storage facility – the risk is that like pears, quince can sometimes rot through both from the core and seemingly randomly through the flesh, whilst looking perfectly fine from the outside, and are more likely to do so if left on the tree. But so far this year, touch wood, they seem to be OK.

And talking about touching wood, that is exactly what I did last week when I went out to collect a few of the windfall quinces. I tripped when navigating the obstacle course which is my garden and fell into a very fast and very impressive slide along the ridiculously slippery decking. Despite liberal application of arnica, a week on and the biggest bruise – almost the size of my face – is black, purple, yellow across my left thigh. I do not love a black/purple/yellow combination and would never wear it out of choice so this feels like adding insult to injury. Literally.

Anyway to the more important business of how to pressure cook quinces. Various people have asked me about this in the last week or so. It has been a bumper year for them and if you don’t have a tree or a friend with a tree, any decent greengrocer will have them, either UK grown, or in the case of most of the international grocers, from slightly further afield. I miss the days BB*, when it was easy to send food between here and Greece and my parents used to send me a box of their own home grown produce every December. It was proper Christmas Box stuff** (reminiscent of the most perfect Christmas scene ever from What Katy Did At School. If you know, you know). It would include mandarins, lemons, a year’s supply of olive oil from their village’s organic cooperative, nuts, herbs, wild fennel seeds collected by my mum, locally harvested sea salt, Mountain tea, the all important Ion chocolate, capers from my favourite shop in Kardamyli (they cure their own capers and preserve them in olive oil rather than brine, vinegar or salt. So much better) – and a pile of quince. The cessation of these boxes is one of the reasons I planted a quince tree – it is a few years in now and it is giving more than I can realistically use, so local friends, food writers and even still life artists have benefitted this year. I have kept a few back for membrillo, and to poach (for both sweet and savoury dishes).

I am going to be giving you my quince trifle recipe at some point before Christmas and there are instructions for poached and roast quince in Modern Pressure Cooking. If you want to cook peeled and cored wedges, I recommend searing first in either olive oil or butter, adding a drizzle of honey and a splash of wine or water and cooking for just 1 minute fast release. This is a slight amendment from the recipe in MPC because a few people have said that if they cook for 2 minutes, their quince are mush. This does depend on the quince - as I mention below, I do find that UK quince cook faster, perhaps it is the variety. So to be on the safe side, start with 1 minute, you can always return to high pressure and cook for a further minute if necessary. This will give you an al dente consistency, perfect for adding to tagines. For puree, cook for the same length of time at high pressure, but do natural release not fast. This does not give you the deep, ruby colour poached quince is famous for, but the flavour will be the same.

I wrote a recipe for quince cheese/membrillo back in my first pressure cooker book and while there is absolutely nothing wrong with that recipe, my timings are now a bit different and I have drastically reduced the sugar. Quinces do cook at different rates and as I always want to keep cooking times to a minimum, I always start with 5 minutes. And actually, if you really want to cut down your fuel consumption, you can cook for just 1 minute and leave to stand off the heat, unopened, for half an hour and you should find that they are perfectly soft.

Quince Cheese (Membrillo)

I’m not giving quantities here, but ratios, because you can then make as little or as much as you like. Use the same amount of lemon regardless.

Give your quince a wash – I always get rid of the fluff that coats them, and cut off any damaged bits. Then roughly chop. You can actually cook them whole if you like – quince – especially the woody cores – can be hard to cut through, so if you find it tricky, just put them in the pressure cooker as they are. I prefer to halve or quarter, partly because I’m a control freak and sometimes as I mention above, quince flesh can be badly bruised within, with no indication of it being so from the outside, and also because you can fit them into the pressure cooker more snugly and they will cook more evenly.

Put the quince in the pressure cooker and add half a lemon, roughly chopped, and water – I add enough to come about half way up the fruit. Close the lid, bring up to high pressure and cook for 5 minutes. This should be enough regardless of how you have cut up the quince. Remove from the heat and leave to drop pressure naturally. Open the lid and leave to cool. You can leave the lid sealed of course, but the quince will cool quicker if it is opened.

This is now a good time to prepare your moulds. You can of course spoon into sterilised jars if you like, but moulds make more sense as the paste is better sliced than spooned, and you want to be able to turn it out (the lip found in most jars prevents this). You can use any moulds you like. Small loaf tins you can come and cut again from are good, so are ramekins, but I like using smaller moulds on the cheeseboard.

When I was preparing these I suddenly remembered the connection between owls and quince and it felt very serendipitous.*** And I now feel as though I should be making a lamb mince tagine with slices of quince which I think would be very nice. Next time. (And actually, if enough of you ask, I might make and write this up this week). Anyway, all you need to do with the moulds is brush their insides with either a neutralish, sweet oil (almond is good) or some glycerine. Some people line with plastic wrap/cling film but why use plastic if you can avoid it.

Strain the quince – keep the water as it will have taken on a lot of quince flavour and you can use it to make syrup (measure it and use equal amounts of honey or sugar. Simmer until syrupy). Remove the cores from the flesh – you should find that the flesh is very soft and the cores will still be hard, so it is easy to separate them. You can keep the skins as long as they are blemish free.

Puree the flesh and skins, then push through a coarse sieve. This will get rid of some, not all, of the grittiness you usually get with quince and is part of the charm of quince cheese. If you want a completely smooth texture, push through a finer sieve.

Measure the quince  pulp back into your pressure cooker or a saucepan (I use the pressure cooker as it saves on washing up). Add preserving or granulated sugar in a ratio of 2:1 pulp to sugar – so if you have 500g quince pulp, add 250g sugar. Mix thoroughly, then leave to stand for half an hour. Slowly bring to the boil, then cook, stirring pretty much constantly, until the mixture has turned from a pale rosy puree to a deeper, brighter orange. When you can trace a path in the base of the pan and the mixture takes a few seconds to fill it back in again, it will be ready. Remove from the heat.

Spoon into your moulds, making sure you have pushed the paste into all the nooks and crannies, and smooth over. I use a palette knife for this.

Then leave to set, either at room temperature or in the fridge. Carefully turn them out and wrap in waxed or greaseproof paper. I then put into a large glass container and keep in the fridge, but they will keep just as well on a pantry shelf.

Membrillo is of course best with a decent cheese. I ate the first one with my last ever Hebden Goat cheese. It feels very strange eating something for what you know is for the very last time. I feel very sad that such a perfect little cheese – one which has given me much pleasure over the years since I discovered it via The Courtyard Dairy, is no more.

That is too sad a note to end on, so moving on to happier things - it is Stir Up Sunday next weekend, which means I am going to be posting all about Christmas Puddings this week. Yes, you will be getting a second post very soon. And if you haven’t soaked your fruit yet, fear not - I have a pressure cooker short cut which I always do anyway, as it makes such a difference to the end result. See you in a couple of days!

*Before Brexit

** on a less Christmassy note, sometimes there would be natural history finds. For example, scorpions preserved in alchohol, wasp nests, snake skins and cardboard boxes filled with cicada exoskeletons

*** From Edward Lear’s The Owl and the Pussycat: “They dined on mince, and slices of quince Which they ate with a runcible spoon.”