Kochen mit Quitten – Cooking with quince.

Patience, patience, patience is the word that springs to mind when I think about this wonderful fruit. We have an old quince tree in our garden which is a delight to look at and also to smell.  Better still, when you cook with it, the house is filled with the most delightful aroma.  Even better is the taste.  Not many people I know use quince because it must be cooked and cooked for a long time.  A great candidate for slow food festivals or slow cooking!

Our quince tree in Autumn

The quince tree that we have is a ‘C.oblonga lusitanica’ as our quince are more oblong shaped.  The quince are ready to be picked now because the fruit have turned to bright yellow and you can smell a beautiful scent.  You will note on this photo that the quince have a grey fur on them.  This is normal but of course, you must wash this off before any preparation for cooking.

Quince ready for picking.

This recipe is a favourite of ours and was developed by Maggie Beer.  It is simple but as I said, patience is the key.

Six quinces, 1.5 litres of water, 4 cups of sugar and the juice of three lemons.  Put the quinces, sugar and water in a heavy saucepan.  Rapidly boil for half an hour then reduce heat and simmer for up to five hours.  Turn the fruit about four times and only add the lemon juice at the very end.  We serve them with whipped cream.  They turn an incredible deep red colour!

Here are the quince with the sauce....delight to look at and to taste!

This season I am going to try and make homemade quince paste but I will need to set aside about 8 hours for this one.  Quince paste served with Manchego cheese from the Erlangen Cheese shop in the Friederichstrasse is simply delectable!

This is the sauce that goes with the quince. Great with cream or ice-cream.

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