At the moment, I mean right now Quinces are in season. Those large slightly nubbly yellow fruits that many people seem to have no idea what to do with. Well, I didn’t anyway. I saw the quinces at the market and I just had to experiment with them, whilst I would have loved to make jelly or a paste from them I just don’t have the time to do that, like alot of you I guess. I attempted an internet trawl to get some inspiration, but I got none. I realised that I kinda knew what I wanted and I just had to attempt it, alone. I had imagined a method to bake the quinces slowly in the oven that would not require very much attention but ended up with a tender melting quince reminisent in flavour of gluehwein or mulled wine. YUM! If you make this you need to make it soon while quinces are still in season. In case you haven’t seen a quince before here is link to some info about them.

This is just general method, I have made this twice and both times it worked fabulously, even converting previous quince virgins

Gluehwein Quince
Quinces, washed to remove down then sliced into wedges with there cores removed (peel or not your choice)
Red Wine I used Shiraz
Cinnamon Sticks
Sugar
Lemon, a few slices of peel removed and then juiced
Orange, a few slices of peel removed and then juiced

Place quince, and peel in an oven safe dish ( I used a pyrex one) sprinkly over a few dessertspoons of sugar (depending on amount of quince but not too much), add juice then redwine to come up about halfway up the quince wedges.
Get a piece of baking paper large enough to cover the dish and make a cartouche out of it by wetting the paper under the tap then tucking the edges in. bake at around 150C - 170C (My oven sucks I have no idea what temp it really is but I think it is cool) for atleast 2 hours. C heck the quince every hlf hour or so and turn the wedges overThe quince will have changed in texture and absorbed the colour of the wine (plus the go red when cooked). If they are ready turn the oven up slightly sprinkle a dessertspoon of sugar of the top and place back in the over for 15 -20 mins til the sugar has melted and the liquid is syrupy. Serve with good vanilla icecream and crushed amaretti cookies if you can get them. YUM!
If it is too sweet you can add somemore lemon juice to adjust the flavour.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 24th, 2006 at 12:30 pm and is filed under Recipes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.