Membrillo (Quince
Paste)
In our backyard, our quince tree shares a fence with the only
neighbour who doesn't want a wall or fence between us. It hangs over the high netting
wire into their yard and together we share the quinces with the birds
and possums.
It's still a young tree (actually there's two trees planted
close together, it forms one bush. Quinces are self fertile but
apparently pollinate better when in pairs. It must have been about four
years old when we came to Bungendore. (They crop after five years, it's
now over ten)
These trees give us about 10-20 good sized quinces each year
except for the last few years of drought. We eat the fresh (Jan
makes a great quince and apple flan with them), and we've even made a
fine, strongly perfumed quince jelly.
 We then resolved to try making our own Membrillo, quince paste. (Membrillo is specifically quince in the
Spanish, but the product is common all through the Middle East with various
names).
My
first taste of quince paste was one of
Maggie
Beer's Pheasant Farm
Quince
Pastes, but at right is the great label for the Spanish Corazón
del Sol (Heart of the Sun) available from most supermarkets. Membrillo is traditionally eaten with cheese
but it is nice spread on good
bread just by itself.
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"Membrillo"
means quince, and "dulce de membrillo" is candied
quince paste. Most people call the latter "membrillo" too,
for short. In Mexico, apparently if you call someone a "membrillo" you're calling them "a
sucker" in a cute way. In Hispanic markets you can buy pastes made from quince (membrillo),
guava, and mango".
Quince paste really does match well with
hard cheeses. It is fantastic with cloth wrapped cheddars
(like the traditional English Quicks, or Australia's
Maffra cloth bound cheddar. Dusted with icing sugar, and
sliced, it sits well on any desert platter, and is as good as any
imported paste or jellies. And special because you made it.
It sometimes takes us a while to however to get around to
making it. Sitting in a pile on the
sideboard (the house is perfumed with quinces for a week or two) the
codling moth grubs inside them keep chewing, so we cut
around them a bit but that doesn't matter to the result.
Most jams have an equal weight of sugar to fruit, but
for I the paste, I baulked at the prescribed two to one sugar/fruit ratio and reversed it. It
still sets well and tastes great. If it doesn't last as long, we've
never noticed. I keep ours in a plastic container in the
fridge, with slices separated by oven paper.
The use of the microwave makes this version very easy to
do. I just push the softened pulp through a sieve, but if you've got a
food processor with that kind of strainer, go for it.
Here's the Recipe >
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