Recipe:Quince-o-rama, Part 3: The Quest for Membrillo
And now, at long last, we return to the amazing saga of the Quince Wranglers and their Greenvalley adventures. Due to overwhelming popular demand, this third and final installment of the Quince Trilogy will lay bare the mysteries of the most precious quince treasure of all, a firm and fragrant paste known to cognescenti around the world as membrillo, after the Spanish word for "quince."
To recap: Last weekend Willy and I rustled up 15 pounds of quince, knocked back a shot of courage and charged headlong into the fray with our paring knives bared. First we revived Pliny's ancient recipe for QUINCE PRESERVED IN HONEY, then we jarred the quivering crystal known as QUINCE JELLY WITH ROSE GERANIUM. Finally, we moved on to quince paste, which is sometimes considered the by-product of jelly-making since it is made by grinding the pulp that remains after extracting juice for jelly. Willy said it best, though: "It seems to me that jelly is the by-product of membrillo." He's a wise Quince Wrangler.
And a bookish one, too. While our various pots were simmering on the stove, Willy browsed the Greenvalley library to learn the little he didn't already know about quinces. He read aloud from Harold McGee's magisterial On Food and Cooking: the Science and Lore of the Kitchen.
"Quinces, fruit of the central Asian tree Cydonia oblonga, give us a taste of what apples and pears might have been like in the primitive form. They are gritty with stone cells, astringent, and hard even when ripe. But they have a distinctive, flowery aroma (thanks to lactone and violet-like ionones, all derived from carotenoid molecules) that's especially concentrated in the fuzzy yellow skin."
You may remember that in my last post, I quoted Nostradamus's advice not to peel quinces. McGee proves that the old sage's mystical insight holds up to scientific scrutiny.
Willy already had a pretty good understanding of why quinces turn pink then red through long cooking, but he quoted further from McGee to clarify a few of the more scientific details for me:
"Cooking domesticates [quinces]: heat breaks down and softens their pectin-rich cell walls, and the astringent tannins become bound up in the debris, so the taste softens as well....Quinces have another enchanting quality: when slices are slowy cooked in sugar over several hours, they turn from a pale off-white to pink to a translucent deep ruby red. They key to this transformation is the fruit's store of colorless phenolic compounds, some of which cooking turns into anthocyanin pigments."
(Anthocyanin pigments, McGee explains elsewhere in the book, are also found in red cabbage and blueberries, but are somewhat different than the betacyanins and betaxanthins that color beets and chard.)
Above all, we now have a convincing explanation for why the quince is a preserver's best friend, despite its off-putting raw character. A superabundance of pectin maintains a rigid cell structure, but that same pectin can be usefully tamed. The molecules actually unravel while cooking and then reknit themselves into a dense web as they cool. And presto: jelly.
The pectin in quince has many applications, but its action is most amplified in quince paste. Through long reduction, which sheds water and thereby concentrates the pectin content, quince paste because a very firm (let's not use the word "rubbery") matrix that binds the ground pulp into a mass firm enough to cut into any shape.
Because of the lengthy reduction time required to render quinces palatable, I'd advise cooking membrillo in the oven. A pot on the stove would need endless fussing, but you can neglect a baking dish in the gentler heat of a slow oven. Every half-hour or so, just take a break from your yardwork or reading by the fire to stir the puree around. Eventually it will get thick enough and red enough for your liking.
By sheer coincidence, the same day that Willy and I were doing our quince work, my friend Tom Hudgens was at home in Marin County, northern California, making a batch of membrillo using quinces from his yard. He photographed the whole process and was generous enough to let me share the link to his photos on Facebook. Please take the side-trip: It's like a recipe without words. (If you follow the link and double-click the first image, you can then flip through the series as a slide show.)
Note that Tom doesn't bother himself with the jelly by-product, so he prefers to soften his whole raw quince in the oven for an hour or more before peeling and coreing them. He thne purees the cooked fruit and bakes it with cinammon, bay leaf and lemon peel.
A day or two later, yet more quince news arrived when friend Craig forwarded me an e-newsletter from Fabrizia Lanza, daughter of the grandee of Sicilian cooking Anna Tasca Lanza. Writing from her noble family's country estate, Fabrizia reports:
"November is quince season at Case Vechie. We have three beautiful quince trees in the garden that produce enormous yellow fruit with soft, furry skin. We also have some wild quince trees in the fields which are smaller but produce very sweet smelling fruit. Giovanni, the gardener, collects the wild and domesticated quinces, which we combine to create fragrant quince paste. For Christmas, we make jams and small "sweets" made of quince paste to give as gifts. Quinces are inedible raw but when they are cooked with cinnamon, honey, dried raisins and lemon or orange juice, you can create delicious quince paste, cotognata.
Willy and I used a slightly different flavor palette: bay leaves, thyme, lemon juice and ground cardamom, which puts our membrillo somewhat more on the savory side of the street. It's intensely colored and amazingly flavorful, especially considering that the quinces had already given some of their best to jelly.
Our membrillo is somewhat less dark than Tom's—the color of fresh terra cotta rather than sun-dried bricks—because we cooked it less that he cooked his. (If you look at Tom's series of pictures, you'll immediately understand the progression.) A few days of air-drying on the counter produced a remarkable consistency—dense, heavy and pliable.
Beatrice and Lettie's came over while the five-pound slab was drying. They both knew exactly what it was, and Beatrice told me that in her home country of Guatemala, membrillo is sold in shallow wooden boxes called cajetas. Lettie said that in her native region of Aguas Calientes, Mexico, membrillo is eaten more as a savory snack than as a dessert. She suggests slicing it thin and serving it on toast rounds with cheese or, her favorite, with a sprinking of dried chile peppers and a squirt of lemon juice.
"It's good with drinking," she said, pretending to lift a shot of tequila to her lips.
I think it'd be good with anything.
GREENVALLEY MEMBRILLO
5 pounds quince
2 fresh California bay leaves (or 4-5 dried Turkish bay leaves)
seeds from 3 cardamom pods, finely ground
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme, crushed
juice of 1 lemon
1 Take pulp reserved from making QUINCE JELLY and grind through the medium disc of a food mill. Alternatively, place whole raw quinces in a baking dish, coverl and roast in a 300 degree oven until very soft, an hour or more. Allow to cool, then peel and core quinces and puree the fruit in a food mill. In either case, measure puree and note the amount.
2 Measure an equal amount of sugar, and combine puree, sugar, lemon juice and aromatics in a wide baking dish. Place uncovered in a low over (225 degrees) and cook until next Sunday. Joke! But do plan for 2 to 3 hours of cooking time. Stir every half-hour or so until the puree is dark red and very thick—thick enough that you can draw a line on the bottom of the dish with your spoon.
3 Line a shallow pan with parchment paper and pour the puree into it in a 3/4" layer. Allow to cool overnight and then remove the slab of membrillo from the baking pan. Dry uncovered for several days in a warm spot: either on the counter, in an oven with the pilot light on or in the sun. Flip it a couple of a times to insure even drying, then slice and wrap in parchment paper. Sealed in an airtight container, the membrillo will last for months in the fridge.
YIELD
5 pounds quinces yielded 2 pints quince jelly and 5 pounds membrillo
NOTES
Since we're now in gift season, let me suggest another idea: slice the membrillo into festive shapes—this is nicely demonstrated in Tom's pictures—and, if you want, roll the pieces in granulated sugar to make holiday sweets. For this use, try some combination of aromatics including cinnamon, cloves, lemon and star anise. Or follow Ana Tasca Lanza's suggestion to add raisins.
Also I just saw that my friend and canning buddy Nina Corbett has posted a recipe for microwave quince paste on her blog, Put Up or Shut Up.
Reader Comments (6)
Wow--it turned out beautifully!
Those bundles of quince jelly look so lovely stacked together! I have a bit of a fetish for "the object", although when it comes to food, taste has to be hitched to beauty, doesn't it? (admittedly, I suppose that goes for most things--a gorgeous book that's been crappily written doesn't make it far in my esteem)
So many times, I used to be tempted by pretty pots of $15 jam or a wee little tin of chocolates with just the right paper crumpled inside to house the truffles.
I love how un-fussy you can be and yet still put together something in your own kitchen, perfectly wrapped to store for the future, or give as a gift, or just plain admire before devouring it whole.
Looks great, I especially like the way you've wrapped it up.
Interesting to read the quote about quinces turning pink, I've always been intrigued by that.
tonight i was at a tapas restaurant here in nyc and i had aged sheep cheese and membrillo. OMG - i am on a mission to make this next year. your's looks amazing.
What a great finale. Such a nicely wrapped up post, and a nicely wrapped up final product! I am so making membrillo with the last of my quince. However, although the color change was explained--thank you!-- I still wonder why mine didn't change. I made the jelly pretty similarly to yours, using a Ferber recipe. It's perfect in all ways, even the golden color is nice. I'm just sooo curious why it didn't turn pink. Interestingly, Ferber's recipe mentions how beautiful the golden quince jelly is. Any ideas?
This looks awesome. I would love to make it someday. I really love membrillo and creamcheese on crackers. I don't think we get local qunices out here sadly.