Quince and apple crumble

These late mornings and early events are terrible for the circadian rhythm. Hard to wake up…certain it’s time to go to bed at 7pm. Last night picking Harry up from nursery in the pitch black at 5pm, the local owl was twit-ting for a mate. It was good to hear: in our old flat, just around the corner from the nursery, owls were a regular winter sound. I stood transfixed listening, Harry the same, then we spent several happy minutes twit-twooing at each other.

There are grounding, seasonal tasks for November. The annual trip to Ludlow to stock up on game for the freezer; the stirring up of the Christmas cake and pudding; the gathering of hydrangea heads for drying…and the lorry-load of poo.

Low autumn light over Ludlow
Macerating dried fruits in Amontillado sherry and orange juice ready for the Christmas cake
Note the cake tin double wrapped in newspaper ready for its three hour bake

A pallet of poo is actually 60 x 50l bags of matured ‘farmyard’ manure, for mulching. That’s 60 (heavy) bags that need moving from the lorry, down the road, through the gate, down the path, to the allotment. Then shifting from pile to plot. I’m fortunate that it cost us not a penny, as this poo was my Christmas present from my garden-supplier Dad and we’re OK with a bit of graft; my brother, with his posh garden in the Cotswolds, has been quoted £5k (£5000!!!) for a good mulch. There is money to be made in poo.

Dad brought me a pallet of poo!
A few filthy, freezing cold hours later, we have two manured plots
I needed a shower afterwards

One more November activity is cooking with quince, something that only began when I moved to Bearwood and I realised they could be bought (in season) for pence at the halal shop. What a glorious thing a quince is, with its fuzzy velveteen coating, its can’t-quite-place-it scent, its slight otherness. not quite a pear, not an apple, but a glamorous cousin. There’s no need to make boring old quince jelly that will sit uneaten in the cupboard for months: treat the quince as you would any orchard fruit, in cakes, crumbles, pies and for a sweet note in savoury cooking.

A note of warning that quince are hard, and have unpredictable cooking times. I take Claudia Roden’s advice and quarter them, leaving them with skin and core, before simmering in acidulated water until just tender. This can take 20 minutes or it can take 5 so keep an eye on them. When the quince are soft, drain and cool, before removing skin and pips and dicing into chunks. A squeeze of lemon in the water will prevent the fruit browning too much, though it does take on a beautiful hue of rose parchment.

It’s best to briefly simmer the quince in water with lemon before peeling and dicing
The cooked flesh is delicately perfumed and the colour of parchment

For a simple crumble, mix the stewed quince with sweetened apple puree – for my three quince I cooked down three bramley apples with water and a few tablespoons of white sugar. Tip the lot into a suitable dish and either top with crumble mix to bake straight away or freeze the fruit to use another day.

Mix the quince with sweetened apple puree and either turn into a crumble immediately or freeze for another day

I tend to bulk-make crumble topping then leave it in the freezer so a pudding is ready to go when needed. In a food processor, blitz 230g butter with 460g plain flour, then stir in 200g caster sugar and 30g demara sugar. It’s sometimes nice to add flaked almonds or chopped hazelnuts or pecans. Sprinkle a generous layer of crumble over the fruit and lightly press down, then freeze the leftovers in for speedy future desserts.

A final note: Crumbles need baking at quite a high temperature, 180c to 190c – anything less leads to soggy rather than crumbly crumble. Baking times depend on your dish of course, this one took 40 minutes. Leave to stand for a good 15 minutes before eating, to allow the fruit to settle.

Simple but slightly out of the ordinary: quince and apple crumble

Also this week:

Cooking, shopping and eating: Pie and chips in Ludlow; veal pot roast using Ludlow veal; Italian pastries from the tiny fairy-light filled deli. Chanterelles cooked with butter, parsley and garlic. Game pie. Came home with venison haunch and burgers, Italian sausages, mutton, stewing steak, stems of winterberries, purple sprouting…God love Ludlow.

Allotment, garden and house: Mulched allotment and garden with 57 bags of manure, holding three back to use on the strawberries. Ordered new replacement sash windows for office and kitchen; perhaps a new blog about how to rescue your Victorian terrace whilst on a budget is in the offing.

Reading: Bake Off Creme de la Creme, to learn daring baking skills.

Sticky toffee pudding with quince

The frugality challenge has been true to its name this week – a challenge. On Day 8 I took a trip to London and was reminded how, when you set one single foot out into the capital, money is hoovered out of your wallet. Consumerism rules for urbanites, from morning coffee to the after-work pick-me-up. Take as evidence this decorative bunch of sticks – literally a bunch of sticks – for sale in Regent St for the princely sum of £40.

£40 for some twigs. Christmas madness folks!

By day 10 I needed to do a proper shop. I did an Ocado order for the big/heavy stuff, like cat food and tins of tomatoes (£71, pretty normal), and then headed to Aldi for milk, butter, wipes and nappies, and to the local Halal shop for bananas and herbs. Altogether the ‘top up shop’ came to £25, which seemed alot, and I reflected that there was nothing profligate in this shopping bag; it’s not like I was filling up with Taitinger. Life has become expensive now we’re three, even when you shop at Aldi. I offset my grumpiness by making my own Christmas wreath, using ivy from the garden.

Wreath using ivy from the garden

The shopping highlight of the week was a trip to a local nursery for a potted Christmas tree, where I also stocked up on some potted daffodils, hyacinths and veg. £10 buys us loads and reminds me that independent rural food shopping is the best there is.

Total for the week: £144.50. It’s less than normal and we’re still eating really well but I see that mindful shopping is making me mardy about consumerism.

Let’s cheer things up with some good December comfort eating. Earlier in the week I made my lamb with quince recipe, using those quince that I bought from the Halal shop a few weeks back. I used the leftover fruit as a base for a sticky toffee pudding, giving a lovely bit of fruity interest amidst the dense sweetness of sponge and toffee sauce. If quince are not to hand, which is most of the time, this would also work with firm apples or pears. This recipe is a total keeper.

Sticky Toffee Pudding with quince
Serves about 8

First, find yourself a few quince. Poach them in simmering water until softened (about 15 minutes), drain, then allow to cool. Core and cut the fruit into wedges.

Slice some cooked quince into chunky wedges

Next make a simple caramel sauce. In a small saucepan, melt together 115g unsalted butter, 75g caster sugar, 40g dark muscavado sugar and 140ml double cream. Bring the lot to a simmer and reduce until thickened, about 5 minutes. Remove from the heat to cool slightly. Preheat the oven to 180c.

Bubble together your caramel sauce

Find yourself an ovenproof baking dish (I use a lasagne dish) and butter it well. Pour in a drizzle of caramel sauce, lay the quince on top, then drizzle more sauce on top (leave some sauce back to serve with your pudding). Then put the dish in the fridge to firm up whilst you make your sponge.

Layer up sauce and quince in a buttered dish

For the sponge, take 100g stoned dates, chop them roughly, then place in a bowl with 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda and 275ml boiling water. In a separate bowl, beat together 50g unsalted butter with 80g caster sugar and 80g dark muscovado sugar. In yet another bowl, measure 175g flour with 1tsp baking powder1/2 tsp cinnamon and a small pinch of salt. Alternatively beat 2 eggs and the flour into the sugar-butter mixture. Stir in the dates and their water. Mix well.

Make your cake batter – it’s a wet one

Pour the sponge mixture on top of the sliced quince, then bake for about 40 minutes until firm and risen. Serve warm with the remaining toffee sauce and ice-cream. I prefer Mackay’s plain but you could go for vanilla.

Bake the lot together until risen and burnished. Serve with extra sauce and plain ice cream.

Also this week:

Cooking and eating: Amazing Danish pastries from Ole & Steen in Marylebone, doughnuts from St John’s in Covent Garden, lamb with quince, Tune’s egg curry with roasted cauliflower and roti, homemade mince pies, tons of stollen and panettone, the first brandy cream of the season.

Reading: A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, which has the best food writing I have ever read. I can’t believe it’s taken me so long to get around to reading this classic.

Mutton with quince

Slow-cooking comes into its own at this time of year. The days are grey, damp and overcast, and the need for nourishment goes right to the bone. The problem with stews, however, is that they can get a bit….samey. So when I was flicking through Claudia Roden’s compendium of recipes from the Middle East, Tamarind & Saffron, this Moroccan dish of lamb with quince caught my eye. Incredibly simple, yet compellingly exotic, it comprises merely onions, meat, ground ginger, saffron, quince, cinnamon and honey. I had a shoulder of mutton in the freezer, quince in the fruit bowl, and a taste for something new. And lo! A new favourite is born.

A word on quince: they are in season right now. I picked mine up from the vegetable stand in Ludlow market, but I’ve seen them in Middle Eastern grocery shops in Bearwood and on the Hagley Road in Birmingham. Quince is a difficult flavour to pin down. Raw, they are rock hard and inedible, but cooked with sugar they become fragrant and delicately pink in colour. In this dish they give a sour note that offsets the rich mutton, not unlike how the sharp acidity of apple cuts through a fatty cut of pork. If no quince are to be had, this dish would probably work with apple.

Note: the photography in this post is terrible, the low levels of November light having beaten my iPhone.

First, prep your meat and onions. I boned the mutton shoulder, removed the excess fat and diced the meat. The onions are simply sliced. The only spices that are needed are ground ginger and saffron.

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Slice some onions, dice the mutton and have ginger and saffron ready

Heat some oil in a tagine or casserole dish, soften the onions over a medium heat for a few minutes, then tip in the meat. Cook for five minutes, then add a teaspoon of ground ginger, pinch of saffron, salt and a fair amount of black pepper. We are not really browning the meat here as we would for a European-style stew; it’s more about softening the onions and getting some heat into the lamb. Then add water to cover, pop the lid on, and cook for two hours or so until the meat is totally tender.

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Brown meat and onions with spices for five minutes before covering with water and leaving to cook

Then it’s time to attack the quince. Using a heavy knife, for they are as hard as a squash, quarter the quince and tip them straight into boiling water to which you had added the juice of half a lemon.

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Quince, the mysterious & exotic star of the show

Simmer the quince until soft – mine took ten minutes but they can take up to thirty, so just keep an eye on them and test regularly (if the quince are overcooked they will collapse). Drain the quince and once they are cool, remove the cores and dice into chunks, keeping the skins intact.

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Simmer quince in lemon-water until soft, then core and dice

Then it’s merely an assembly job. Once the meat is cooked to your liking, remove the lid and bubble for a few more minutes to reduce the sauce. If there is a lot of excess fat spoon it off, then adjust the seasoning to taste. Tip the quince into the meat along with a teaspoon of cinnamon and a tablespoon of honey, then bubble for a few more minutes before serving.

This stew is a revelation. How can something so simple be so nourishingly delicious? The onions collapse down to make a thickish sauce, with the faintest hint of fragrant spice. It feels like real, honest peasant cooking, albeit from a different time and continent. We had ours with couscous and a simple salad of grated carrot, sliced mint, toasted almonds, feta and lemon.

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With apologies for this terrible photograph: serve the finished stew with a refreshing carrot salad

Mutton (or lamb) with quince

From Claudia Roden’s Tamarin & Saffron 

1kg shoulder of mutton (or lamb)

2 large onions

splash of oil

salt and black pepper

1 teaspoon ground ginger

pinch of saffron

water

1 or 2 quince

juice of 1 lemon

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

honey, to finish

Bone the meat and dice into chunks, removing any excess fat. Slice the onions. Heat the oil in a tagine or stew pot, then soften the onions for a few minutes. Tip in the meat, salt, pepper, ginger and saffron, and cook for a few more minutes until the onions are soft. Tip in water to cover, pop the lid back on, and leave to cook on a low heat for 1 1/2 hours or until the meat is tender. Add water if it becomes too dry.

Prep the quince: Have ready a pan of boiling water with the juice of half a lemon. Cut the quince into quarters then tip them straight into the water. Simmer until soft – this can take 10 minutes or 30, so test regularly. Drain then remove the cores and dice into large-ish chunks, leaving the skins on.

When the meat is tender, remove the lid to reduce the sauce. Spoon off any excess fat. Add the quince to the meat with the cinnamon and 1 tablespoon of honey, cook for a further five minutes. Add more honey or lemon juice to taste, then serve.