Dear reader, I thought I would share this afternoon snack with you. I used the poached quince sauce, left over from making the recipe "Quince and Sweet Gorgonzola Salad," by Yotam Ottolenghi in "Plenty." The cooking directions in my previous post, "Oy the Quince," contained the following steps for poaching quince, and using the listed ingredients.
1-¾ cups water
1-½ cups sugar
15 black peppercorns
4 strips of orange zest
2 bay leaves
juice of ½ lemon/3/4 cup red wine
2 medium quinces
- Preheat the oven to 275 degrees F. Take a medium-sized heavy pan that can go in the oven and for which you have a tight-fitting lid. Place inside the water, sugar, peppercorns, orange zest, bay leaves, lemon juice and red wine. Set on the stove and bring to a light simmer. As soon as the sugar dissolves, remove from the heat.
- Meanwhile, use a vegetable peeler to peel the quinces; keep the skin. With a heavy knife, cut the fruit vertically into quarters and remove the core; keep this too. Cut each quarter into two segments. Place the quince segments, plus the skins and cores, in the sugar syrup. Cover the pan and put it into the oven to cook for about 2 hours. After this time the quince should be completely tender. Remove from the oven and leave to cool, uncovered.
I originally froze the quince sauce that resulted from making this recipe. Recently I defrosted it, thinking I would use it on top of some yogurt, for a snack.
Today I took a different turn and freestyled, by pouring some of the quince sauce (a reduction of the liquids left from poaching the quince) over some freshly washed blueberries. What could be simpler, healthier, and more sweet! Hope you try it too, and enjoy.
