I picked up some quince on sale at the store. They were from a nearby orchard, but were probably too late in the season, and were already going bad (hence the sale) when I opened the bag a few days later. I hadn’t cooked with quince before, and was disappointed that there wasn’t any in the CSA this past year. So when I saw these on sale, I was very excited to make preserves with them.
I came across this recipe for quince preserves in syrup, but needed to halve it after what remained from peeling and cutting out the brown bits. With a bit of inspiration from this FiJ recipe, I included two bags of Lady Grey tea (steeped 10 minutes); a spice bag with a cinnamon stick, star anise, and 8-ish cloves (steeped 30 minutes); and a spent vanilla bean I had been keeping in sugar (I left it in the whole 35 minutes). So not quite chai, more like a spicy London Fog.
I poached the quince for about 35 minutes, then filtered it out from the syrup with a strainer. The yield was a little over two cups of quince and a bit over a cup of syrup (after some spills). The strained syrup became a simple syrup, which I added to sparkling water for a fancy soda whose flavor I can’t quite describe: bitter, citrusy, sweet, savory. Almost like an espresso cola.
The quince itself I thought would be good on vanilla ice cream, with a bit of the syrup drizzled on top (it was). And will probably mix well on its own with yogurt. Similar to the syrup, it was sweet, bitter, savory, and citrusy all at once. I can’t wait to make more.
Rhubarb Season 