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QUINCE JUICE (another way)
Take some ripe quinces, peel and grate them; then squeeze the juice through a cloth. Have ready some sugar boiled to a syrup, put in the juice, and let it boil till it jellies, when it does may be known by putting a spoonful on a plate to cool. The proportion of sugar to be used is half a pound to every pint of juice.
A raw-juice quince jelly: no cooking of the fruit, so the flavour stays sharp and floral rather than turning the deep rose colour of the boiled-pulp method. A few points need translating.
- Grating raw quinceRipe quince is dense and woody, and grating a peeled one by hand is hard work; the fruit also browns within minutes of being cut. Work quickly, or drop the pieces into acidulated water and drain before grating, and use a food processor's grating disc if you have one.
- Squeezing the clothA doubled square of muslin or a jelly bag. Wringing hard gives more juice but also more suspended solids, so the jelly will be cloudy rather than clear; press gently if appearance matters.
- The sugar proportionHalf a pound to the pint is low by modern preserving standards. Taking this as a British imperial pint of 20 fl oz, that is roughly 225 g sugar to 570 ml juice. Quince is high in pectin and fairly acid, so it should still set, but at this sugar level the finished jelly is unlikely to keep long.
- "Boiled to a syrup"Dissolve the sugar in a little water and bring it to a clear boil before the juice goes in; there is no need to take it to any thread or crack stage.
- Judging the setThe spoonful-on-a-plate test is the same wrinkle test used today, and it works. Chill the plate first. A thermometer is quicker: setting point is 220F (104.5C) at sea level.
- ColourBecause the fruit itself is never simmered, this should stay paler, amber to gold, rather than the ruby of long-cooked quince, though prolonged boiling of the juice can still bring up some pink. Overboiling past the set point will darken it and give a caramel note.
- Yield and keepingRaw-pressed quince gives a modest amount of juice, so expect a small quantity from a large weight of fruit. With so little sugar, treat it as a fresh preserve: refrigerate and use within a few weeks.
Quince was a standard English preserving fruit long before it became a specialist item, valued precisely because it sets so readily —> the word marmalade comes from the Portuguese marmelo, quince, and originally meant a stiff quince paste rather than anything to do with oranges. The recipe's title marks it as an alternative way of handling the fruit, and it is a quick one: no long simmering of pulp, just grated fruit pressed for its juice. Quince is too hard and astringent to be much eaten raw, and needs sugar and heat to become anything at all, which is why it survives in old cookbooks almost entirely in the preserving chapters.