Quince Jelly

Quinces will be in again soon, and if you live in the Touraine and don't have a quince tree - don't worry - someone will offer you a bucketful of quinces. Quince trees seem to be loaded almost every year, and they are a sadly under utilised fruit.

Cut in half, it is obvious they are related to apples and pears.

 

Gélée de coings, as quince jelly is called in French, is one of the easiest and most reliable jams you can make. Quinces have so much natural pectin there is never a problem with set and because you strain the liquid from the solids for the end product, there is no fiddling about peeling and coring the fruit. Chop them up as roughly as you like.

Neatly peeled, cored and thickly sliced - not for jelly, but beingpoached for dessert. The longer they poach the pinker they will get.

I start by washing them and rubbing the fuzz off. Then I cut them into largish chunks. Combine the quinces with an equal quantity of sugar and set aside in the fridge for a couple of days. Follow the same method as for apple jelly.

A jelly bag stand, straining under the weight of quince pulp.

Once you have made the jelly and have a bag full of pulp, pips and skin, don't throw it out. Run it through a food mill to extract the pips and scaly bits and make quince paste with the resulting pink purée.

Quince paste is a specialty of Orleans dating from the Middle Ages and known as Cotignac. Quince is used a lot in the Maghreb (former French colonies in North Africa) in tajines. Locally it is prepared as compote to accompany game, but this requires a lot of time and work. Quinces are also used to make a liqueur by many people here, macerating the fruit with sugar and combining the juice drawn off with eau de vie (also known as marc de fruit).