Quinces aren't around outside november/december, so i had to grab my chance this year to cook with them and am i glad i did - they were truly amazing. As you can see from the picture, the quinces go from rock-hard and white/lemon in colour, to a soft gorgeous pink and taste delicious.
- Fill a bowl of water with cold water and a squirt of lemon juice to put the quinces in and stop them turning brown.
- Peel 4 quinces, quarter and core them, putting them into the water and keeping the peelings/cores.
- Add 700ml muscat, 300ml water, 500g sugar, 1 stick of cinnamon, 2 bay leaves, 4 cloves, 3 cardamon pods and 6 peppercorns to a pan and bring to the boil.
- Put the peelings and quinces in an ovenproof dish, pour over the wine, cover and cook at 150C for 2 1/2 hours.
- Remove from the dish, strain the syrup into a saucepan, and reduce for a few mins.
- Serve the quinces with the syrup poured over them.
Nigella warns about over reducing the syrup and creating quince toffee, which of course, i did! In fact, the syrup i was left after 2 1/2 hours in the oven, didn't need reducing at all once it had cooled a bit. I do however now have quince jelly which is delicious on toast. So i suggest taking half the syrup out, to have with the quinces, and creating quince jelly with the rest. You can always increase the quantities for the syrup to have more of both.
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