A few weeks ago, one of the vendors at the farmers market had quinces for sale. I have heard of quinces but have never tasted one, so I bought one. I discussed with the vendor adding it to an apple pie or apple crisp. She recommended cooking it separately before adding it to a pie. She said the fragrance was wonderful.
The quince sat in the fruit bowl for a few weeks, next to a single orange and a few local apples while I looked at quince recipes on the internet. The most intriguing one involved cutting the quince in half like a squash, scooping the guts out, and baking it with spices and honey in the cavity. The day before Thanksgiving I bought a bag of Granny Smith apples at Grocery Outlet — not my favorites, but serviceable when I need cooking apples and local apples will soon be gone.
Yesterday it was time to use up two homemade pie crusts left from the holiday. I still had three local apples in the fruit bowl, plus the Granny Smiths. I pulled out my trusty 1956 Betty Crocker Picture Cookbook, my mother’s and my go-to cookbook for basic cooking, and flipped to the index for Q.
No entries for quince.
Okay. I went for my Deborah Madison cookbook collection. Madison makes tea from quince pips and candied quinces and uses quinces in filling for mince pies.
I peeled the quince, and then cut into it, which was difficult: I had to sharpen my knife three times while removing the core and seeds and cutting the fruit into pieces. Are they always like this? The fragrance was underwhelming, faintly citrus-y. Was it even ripe? (The skin was bright yellow).
In the end, I threw it in a saucepan with a third of a cup of sugar and some water and let it cook while I rolled out the bottom pie crust and stuck the crust back in the fridge to chill.
Then I received a phone call that there was a ticket available for the last matinee of The Nutcracker. I turned off the stove, kissed the cat goodbye and hurried to town.
I watched half of the performance. I was shocked to learn that there was no live orchestra (I don’t go to The Nutcracker for the dancing, but for the music). The artistic director had set the piece as a local story in a barn, the Olympic Mountains and lavender fields. It still had the Rat King and the Nutcracker and plenty of corps de ballet.
I would have stayed for the second half, but I was meeting my friend Eileen to drive out for the annual lighting of Lake Crescent Lodge, a beautiful art deco building. There was a fire blazing in the fieldstone fireplace, a decorated tree, a Santa hat on one of the resident deer heads, carols by the Sequim chapter of the Sweet Adelines, costumed elves passing trays of cookies, and Santa himself, posing for photos with infants, children, teens, and bold old folks.
We drove home in the dark. I fed the cat and ate salad, vegetables and the last of the Thanksgiving stuffing for dinner.
Time to finish the pie. I put the oven on to preheat to 400 F, retrieved the pie shell from the refrigerator, scooped out the poached quince chunks with a slotted spoon, peeled and sliced the three local apples and one gargantuan Granny Smith, added half a cup of sugar mixed with nutmeg and cinnamon, piled the fruit and sugar into the crust, dotted the filling with butter. I rolled out the top crust and crimped it in place, popped the pie in the oven and started doing dishes.
I had my first slice of pie after lunch today. The quince’s flavor still reminded me of roasted sweet potato — not unpleasant, but not special in my opinion. Sometimes there was a faint rose-like odor. I’d just as soon eat plain apple pie.
Did any of you grow up eating quinces? What do you like to do with them? They are gone for this year, but next year I can do another experiment.
P.S. This morning, a week after I made the apple and quince pie, I used the leftover quince poaching syrup as part of the liquid in a three-day batch of oatmeal — one cup poaching liquid, two cups whole milk. I added dried apricots, dried sour cherries, almonds and grated fresh ginger, thinking those flavors would go with the residual quince flavor. I was right. I made a triple batch because the poaching liquid was quite sweet and I wanted to dilute the sweetness.
thekalechronicles 