[Sca-cooks] A Quince Puzzle

[James Prescott]

The liquid.

Compare http://www.historicfood.com/Quinces%20Recipe.htm

Thorvald


On 2013-10-06 17:05, David Friedman wrote:
> My quince tree has been producing, and having made a fair amount of
> al-Warraq's preserved quince I decided to try something else. Dawson has
> a recipe for condomacke of quinces which consists of peeling,
> quartering, and coring the quinces, boiling them in one part wine to
> four parts water until they are soft, then :
>
> thake a peece of fine cavas & put your quinces and liquor in it, and
> when your sirrope is all runne through,*** put in so much fine suger as
> will make it sweete, and set it over a quicke fire againe, surring with
> a sticke til it be so thicke that a drop will stand upon a dish, then
> take it from the fire and put it in boxes.
>
> I have put asterisks in to mark the puzzle. At that point I have two
> things--about a pint of liquid containing wine, water, and quince juice,
> and about 3/4 c of quince mush from which I have squeezed out as much
> juice as I can. Which of the two am I using for the rest of the recipe?
>
> The "so thicke that a drop will stand" passage suggests it's the liquid,
> since the mush is about the texture of apple sauce, doesn't form drops,
> and stands just fine without any additional cooking. On the other hand,
> the liquid doesn't really require stirring until it's thickened quite a
> bit--at the moment it's simmering and I will check that prediction in a
> little bit.
>
> Can anyone here who either knows marmalade and related recipes better
> than I do or is more familiar with the 16th c. nouvelle cuisine than I
> am offer an opinion? Obviously the ultimate test is to do both and see
> how they come out, which is what I'm doing--the mush is now in a jar
> after about five minutes of cooking, the liquid simmering.
>
> This reminds me somewhat of my experiments with the preserved quince. I
> fill up the jar with the solid part, leaving a surplus of liquid--honey
> and quince juice. My first idea was to use the surplus to make quince
> sekanjabin. I added vinegar, boiled the liquid down until it looked
> suitably thick, put it in a container--and it jelled on me, presumably
> because of the pectin from the quince, although I might have gotten the
> syrup too thick.
>
> So I did it again without vinegar, and now have a quince jelly with a
> very strong honey taste. I wonder how close this is to what Dawson is
> producing, using sugar instead of honey.
>