Canning nummer zwei

Last week we grabbed a few friends and got together to do some more canning! Going the high acidity route again, this time we opted to use lovely quince which was enjoying the tail end of its season here in Switzerland. We found these beautiful, chunky, perfectly imperfect fruits at the corner store near the Musical Theater in Kleinbasel (Oetlingerstrasse and Rhienring).


The colors of this fruit were extraordinary; the radiant yellow peel against the crisp white flesh and neon green tips - just gorgeous. And to top it off, none of us had ever made quince jam before so the excitement factor weighed heavy throughout the entire process!


The quince were surprisingly tough to chop so we decided to grate the fruit in order to decrease its cooking time.







Several grated quince later, cooked down with lemon juice and lemon zest, the kitchen smelled wonderful. It was interesting to see the warm color come out in the quince as it cooked. It turned out to be a beautiful deep apricot color when done. The flavor, sweet, tart and tangy.




Again, we used the same canning process as with the pumpkin butter and plum jam with cinnamon—super easy since quince is an especially acidic fruit. This also meant that the jam turned out to be a bit thick without the use of pectin. Nice!








We found it to be great not only as a jam but also a base for sauces and cooking. It was delicious mixed with some hot sauce for chicken stir fry. Quince Persimmon Duck anyone? Divine. Ahh the possibilities!

By the way we found out some interesting things about quince when planning this cooking event; the word marmelade comes from marmelo which is a Portuguese word for quince, and in Spanish quince is called membrillo and is cooked into a reddish paste called dulce de membrillo. Interesante!