To: "North American Fruit Explorers" <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Chinese quince
Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2006 08:09:05 -0500
I use these quinces to make hot pepper jam, or mix them with grated pears
and spices for something with a lot more character than the locally made
"pear honey". For hot pepper jam:
1: Grate quinces and measure volume
2: Grate an equal volume of sweet peppers, red or green. Prettiest with
both.
3: Measure out an equal volume of sugar to match the other two.
4: Grate 1-3 jalapenos per pint of other ingredients. Personally I find
it takes 3 jalapenos per pint to get the right heat. If you don't deseed,
it will be hotter. I don't deseed them. Wear rubber gloves if you can and
use a good grater. You could slice cayennes instead, I'd guess 3-4 per pint
would do the job. The cayennes are a lot easier to handle. (We're now
addicted to Kung Pao, a Thai pepper similar to cayennes. I hardly bother to
mess with jalapenos and get my hands all hot anymore.) You can try tasting
the raw or partly cooked ingredients for heat, but the cooked blend will be
not be quite the same.
5: Boil to the jelly stage, this won't take very long. If you are lazy,
add a bit of sugar at a time to make it jell faster. It won't take very
much, maybe half a cup to start it turning.
6: Pour into sterilized jars, screw on sterilized lids. The sugar content
negates any need for further processing. Any that fail to seal can be
refrigerated.
Regarding proportions, you actually want this jelly to be a bit hotter than
you think you do. The effect will be diluted by bread and butter anyway.
The trick is to get a hot bite, so the taste buds shriek "Warning warning,
danger danger!" and then suddenly the heat is gone and you taste sugar and
the more subtle flavors of pepper and quince. Your brain says, "Wow, that
was fun, let's do it again!" Everybody ADORES it. It's beautiful to look
at in the jar, so good for Christmas presents, and it's great to take along
with some good bread and butter for get togethers.
To go with pears, equal volumes or you could probably get away with 2-3
parts of pears. Again an equal amount of sugar to match the other volumes,
though you might get away with less. In fact, if you want to go for
"butter" rather than the jell point, you'd use only half as much sugar as
the other ingredients. I would personally enjoy this more, as I don't like
too much sugar in anything. Add however much of cinnamon, nutmeg, or cloves
as you'd use for apple butter. Again, more spices than tastes good alone,
as it will be spread on something. (Careful with the cloves though!) It
might be best to actually spread some of the half cooked mix on some bread
to get an idea before you pour it into the jars. Bon appetit! Donna