Quince Essentials

 

Quince trees abound in my part of France- and a windy October day brought the ripe yellow fruit tumbling down.

I was lucky enough to be given a big bag full from my generous neighbour- but if you can't find them where you are then most of the recipes in this month's blog work well with pears, apples or plums.

Now, lovely though they are, the heady perfumed skin is not to everyone's taste ( or more particularly their sense of smell) so it was a good idea to use these up quickly as the scent can quickly overpower a room.

My neighbour recommended eating them just simply baked in the oven so I tried this first.

Wash the fruit well, cut in half and scoop out the black seeds with a sharp knife:

Prepare your fruit

Place in a baking tray with a filling of your choice- I used sultanas and golden syrup but you could use anything you like ( for example sherry or port, butter and brown sugar as illustrated by my friend Michelle's Pommes au Porto)

My version with syrup and sultanas

Michelle's apple version with port, butter and sugar

Bake in a moderate oven for 35-45 minutes until tender, then serve with cream or mascapone.

Baked stuffed quince

You can also bake them into a Tarte Tatin- simmer the peeled quince for 15 minutes or so to soften them ( they will turn a slightly pink colour) and then make some caramel by melting 2-3 tablespoons of sugar in a frying pan, placing the quince into the hot liquid caramel and then topping with a circle of puff pastry. Bake at 185 degrees for about 25-30 minutes until the pastry is risen and golden, then whip it out of the oven ( wearing your thickest oven gloves) and invert it onto a plate.

Quince Tatin

Or try a Crumble. Blitz together 125g plain flour, 50g sugar, 70g butter and a sachet of vanilla sugar. 

Blitz up your crumble topping

Simmer your peeled and prepared quince for 10-15 minutes or so to soften them, mix with other fruit if you want ( I used blackberries ) and top with the crumble. Bake at 170 degrees until bubbling and golden. Serve with ice cream.

Quince and Blackberry Crumble

I also used up a leftover buttery croissant to make a Quince Bread and Butter Pudding. 

Prepare the quince as for a crumble ( above ) but top with a sliced croissant. Make a custard from 1 egg, 150 ml milk and 2 tsps vanilla essence.

Pour over the croissant and quince and leave for half an hour or so to soak in.

Sprinkle on a sachet of vanilla sugar.

Leave the fruit, sugar and croissant to soak in the custard

Bake at 150 degrees until the custard is set and firm.

Quince Bread and Butter Pudding

And finally, I made Quince Membrillo ( paste or jelly served with cheese in Spain for tapas)

Apparently this recipe works equally well with plums, if you haven't got quince.

For 1 kg of quince, you will need the juice of 2 lemons and 400g of preserving sugar.

Place the chopped quince in a heavy bottomed saucepan with a little water. Simmer for 30-40 minutes until the fruit is very tender, then add the lemon juice and sugar. Cook, stirring all the time until the sugar is dissolved.

Then either sieve or blitz the fruit to make a purée.

Cook the purée down for another twenty minutes, until it is reduced by about a third. Keep stirring as it becomes very thick and can catch.

Then you can either pot it up in sterilized jars (as I did) or pour into a baking tray lined with silicone paper and leave to cool before slicing to serve with cheese.

And there I will stop. I hope this inspires you to dine on quince ( with or without mince)!

 

And not a runcible spoon in sight!

Mellow Fruitfulness

Autumn is well and truly here- damp and dreary, wild and wet.

Luckily there is still plenty of colour in the Autumn fruit and veg bowl to brighten spirits and plates over the coming month.

Pears, squashes, pumpkins, marrows, tomatoes. parsnips-plenty to feel good about there.






First of all, I wanted to use up the last of the pears from my crop this year. Of course the trouble with pears is getting them just right- not too hard and unripe and not past their best ( which happens all too quickly). Eddie Izzard summed it up in his famous fruit bowl sketch- ( apologies for the over-fruity language)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVTDwq2q3Ak

Well, I find the best way to treat these 'gorgeous little beasts' is to poach them- in 400ml red or white wine, or sugar syrup, or Earl Grey tea or even ginger beer ( according to your preference). Just make sure the poaching liquid is sweetened to your liking and I would always recommend the addition of 2-3 star anise to the liquid too. You can poach them for as long as it takes- but they are ready when a knife slides easily into them.

Pears poached in wine and star anise

Poached pears are lovely on their own- but even better when added to a trifle like my Sugar and Spice Trifle:

Sugar and Spice Trifle
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/apr/23/trifle-recipes-swap-speculoos-biscuits-breakfast-dale-berning-sawa

Click on the link for the full recipe.

I use Speculoos biscuits for this easy pud- but ginger biscuits do just as well.

The soft pears also go well in a Tarte Tatin- laid in a caramel sauce in the base of an ovenproof dish or pan and topped with puff pastry then baked at 180 degrees until the pastry is golden and the caramel sauce bubbling. Turn out on a plate when warm.

Pear Tarte Tatin

Keen to try out the first of my butternut squash crop, I used half in a soup with parsnips and half in a Baked Risotto.

Mirror Mirror on the wall...who is the fairest of them all?

Peel and chop your veg into even sized pieces, add a handful of red lentils and then cook until tender in a litre of good vegetable stock. Blitz once the veg is tender and serve with cream or yoghurt swirled in.

Parsnip and Butternut Soup

The remaining squash is going into a baked risotto- but you could just as easily serve it roasted and stuffed ( like these marrows stuffed with leftover Bolognaise sauce and baked with cheese )

Bolognaise Stuffed Marrow

or as a traybake with sausages,  potatoes, onions,  coarse grain mustard, olive oil and a handful of peas thrown in at the end. (Or just use up whatever you have in the fridge!)

Use-it-up Traybake

                  

And so to the other half of the squash- made into a Baked Risotto.

This recipe is good if you are serving it at a dinner party and prefer to spend more time with your guests, rather than constantly stirring the risotto.

You will need: 1/2 butternut squash or potimarron roasted for 20 minutes or so in a hot oven, 1 leek ( chopped and softened in a little oil), 100g of risotto rice per person, 1 cup of cider, 1 litre of vegetable stock, 1 tbsp of Boursin cheese with garlic and herbs, some chopped fresh herbs, olive oil and Parmesan to dress the dish.

Begin in the usual way, coating the risotto rice and leeks with oil in a deep pan.

Coat the rice and leeks with oil in the pan

Add the cider and stir until the liquid has been absorbed.

Cook in the cider until absorbed

Carry on adding veg stock ladle by ladle, stirring as you go, until about half has been absorbed.

Add the squash, some fresh herbs and salt and pepper as necessary. 

Add the herbs, squash and rest of the liquid

Transfer to an ovenproof dish with a lid, add the rest of the stock and place to cook covered in a moderate oven (170 degrees) for 20 minutes or so until all the liquid has been absorbed.

Stir in the Boursin and serve with extra Parmesan and olive oil to dress it.

Baked Squash and Leek Risotto

Finally, if you have lots of leftover risotto- make Arancini (little risotto rice balls- usually deep fried but equally good baked in the oven).

Wet your hands and make golf ball sized patties from the cold risotto rice. Roll each one first in beaten egg

then in chapelure ( toasted breadcrumbs)

(I make mine from leftover biscottes blitzed up with a few Pringles  but it's also a good way of using up leftover toast if you've made too many slices.)

Place on a lightly greased oven tray ( or fry in hot oil) and bake until golden in a hot oven (180 degrees). They don't take long.

Serve with a spicy dipping sauce.

                               

                                                                                 Arancini

Time to put away the wellies. The garden can look after itself  until the Spring.The weather can do what it likes out there- I am cosy with soups, risotto and puds to keep me going.

                                                            Bon appétit!

Plum Crazy

After the fruitless summer of 2017- when the late frosts of the Saints de Glace laid waste to all the blossom- this year the fruit trees in my Auvergne garden have gone, well...crazy.

My greengage tree, which in the 3 years we have been living here has only produced 4 little fruits, is suddenly and bough-breakingly laden.
What's more, they are all ripe and need to be dealt with right away.




Ho-hum, never mind about unpacking. Time to get preserving.



In addition to all the usual crumbles, pies and cakes I made pots and pots of plum relish and chutney.

Relish/Chutney

There were also Clafoutis

Plum Clafoutis

and Tatins to be made.

Plum Tarte Tatin

And, just as an experiment, I decided to make an Oriental Plum Sauce for dipping and stir fries.

I put 2 kilos of plums ( or greengages to be more precise) in the slow cooker ( stones removed),

Plums in the slow cooker

along with 750g of white onions ( chopped), 6 fat garlic cloves, 4 heaped tsp of ground ginger, 6 heaped tsp of Chinese 5 Spice powder, 250 ml of soy sauce, 2 tbsp black treacle and  650ml of cider vinegar.

Onions and oriental flavours added

I left it to cook ( and smell delicious) for 6 hours. (You could achieve the same effect in a large pan, simmered for an hour.)

I then tipped it all into said large pan and blitzed it to a smooth mixture using a stick blender. I added 400g of dark brown sugar and 400g of white granulated and heated until all dissolved. A quick boil and then pour the hot mixture into hot sterilised bottles or jars and seal.

Oriental Plum Sauce

Summer Stir Fry

I have used this on stir fries (yum), also with bacon and eggs like HP sauce and last night added a dash to some sauteed Swiss Chard. It was delish.

Just as we were eating the last of the plum/greengages in a fruit salad- my neighbour called round.

"Cela vous intéresse, les prunes?" he asked hopefully, holding out a sack of 5 kilos of golden Mirabelles. Smiling gamely, I accepted ..retaliating an hour later with 3 kilos of apples surreptitiously hung over his fence as a gift.

So, it's back to the preserving pan to make Mirabelle Jelly..

Mirabelle Jelly all made

just don't talk to me yet about the groaning peach trees. Give me a week.

One of three peach trees!

Rhubarb! Rhubarb!

Roobarb and Custard- remember them?

I'm carrying on this month's 'garden produce' theme with a rhubarb special this week- as my allotment friend was kind enough to give me a big bagful.





In addition to the usual crumble- not to be sniffed at of course as it's always a favourite- I'm making a rhubarb relish to go with savoury dishes, a rhubarb clafoutis and a rhubarb and plum tatin, along with any other ideas which occur to me along the way.

So - I need two pans of stewed rhubarb- one sweet, one not so sweet.

First- stew your rhubarb!

The first is sweetened with a little golden syrup, flavoured with some mixed spice- and not a lot else. This will make the crumble.

(Crumble mix- 3 parts flour to 1 part each sugar and butter, add some flavours with cinnamon or ginger or change the texture with some rolled oats or crushed biscuits- blitz and off you go!)

Good old rhubarb crumble

I don't add any water, as the rhubarb produces lots of lovely syrup itself. If you have too much liquid, save it in a jug in the fridge and add it to different fresh fruit ( here grapes and plums) for a crumble variation later in the week.

Give some fresh fruit a rhubarb kick

The rhubarb relish goes as follows:

250g rhubarb
handful of sultanas and/or chopped dates
1 chopped onion
125 ml  white wine vinegar
1/2 tsp each salt and ground ginger

Boil in a saucepan until thick and chutney-like. Taste and adjust salt/vinegar levels.

This is just meant to be kept for a week or thereabouts so I haven't poured it into sterilised jars etc etc. Instead it sits happily in a container in the fridge- until I used it :

Firstly- to accompany grilled mackerel

Grilled mackerel with rhubarb relish

Secondly- to go with a sausage baguette and salad

Sausage sandwich with relish

And finally, a spoonful stirred into an onion and red wine sauce to go with sausage and mash.

Rhubarb and Onion Gravy

(Brown one chopped onion, pour in a cupful of red wine and boil to reduce. Add some gravy granules to thicken ( or stock, followed by a little more reducing), season, add the rhubarb to sweeten the sauce and hey presto!)

Now for the Tatin.

Take an ovenproof frying pan and melt 2 tbsp sugar in a tablespoon of water to make a caramel.

Melt sugar in water

Lay your fruit, cut side down into the caramel- I used plums and filled in the spaces with rhubarb.

Carefully start laying in your fruit

Tuck a circle of puff pastry over the top.

Cover with puff pastry

Bake in a hot oven until the pastry is risen and golden and the fruit juices are starting to bubble around the edges ( about 20 minutes).

Ready to come out of the oven

Carefully remove from the oven (don't burn your hands on the frying pan handle). Allow to cool a little before turning out onto a serving plate.

Rhubarb and Plum Tatin

Finally-the clafoutis. (A sort of sweet fruity Yorkshire pudding).

Mix together 60 g of flour, 1 tsp of ground ginger and 100g of icing sugar.
Beat 3 eggs with 100ml of milk and 100ml of cream.Add it to the dry ingredients and beat to a smooth batter.

Creamy batter

Part-cook the rhubarb with a squeeze of golden syrup- until it is just al dente.(A matter of minutes).

Lightly oil a pudding dish and spread the rhubarb over the base.

Pour on the batter mix and bake in a moderate oven (180 degrees) until risen and golden.

Clafoutis straight out of the oven- it does sink a bit later on..

Dust with icing sugar before serving- and have with ice cream.

Rhubarb Clafoutis

Enjoy!