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Quince Juice
Pare, core, and quarter some very ripe quinces. Put them into an earthen jar, with a pint of cold water for each pound of fruit. Cover the jar closely, place it in a saucepan of water, and let the fruit steam gently until it is broken. Then lift the jar out of the water, remove the cover, and leave the fruit untouched until the next day. Turn it into a jelly-bag, and strain the juice until it is clear and bright, when it will be ready for use. The pulp may be boiled with moist sugar for common use. If the quinces are allowed to boil too long their colour will be spoilt.
A base preparation rather than a finished dish: the juice is the raw material for quince jelly, and the method is a gentle water-bath extraction that protects colour and clarity.
- The hinge is the gentle heatThe fruit is steamed in a covered jar set in a pan of water, not boiled directly over the fire. The recipe's own warning is only that if the quinces boil too long their colour will be spoilt.
- Ripe fruit onlyQuinces are ready when the down has rubbed off and the skin is uniformly yellow and strongly perfumed. Underripe fruit gives a thin, sour juice with less of the aroma the whole exercise is for.
- The earthen jarAny heatproof vessel that fits inside a deep pan works: a wide-mouth canning jar, a stoneware crock, a Pyrex bowl covered with foil. Keep the water in the outer pan at a bare simmer and topped up; the recipe asks for the jar to be covered closely while it steams.
- Water ratioA pint of water per pound of fruit is about 570 ml per 450 g, an imperial pint. This is generous by modern standards because quince is dense and hard; the recipe gives no timing, only to steam gently until the quarters are broken, which will take some hours.
- The overnight restThe cover comes off and the fruit is left untouched until the next day before it goes into the bag; a long stand before straining is standard in jelly work.
- StrainingDo not squeeze or stir the jelly bag; press the pulp and the juice goes cloudy for good. Let it drip unaided, several hours or overnight. "Strain until clear" may mean passing it through a second time if the first run carries sediment.
- Moist sugar for the pulpMoist sugar is unrefined or lightly refined soft brown sugar, still carrying molasses. Ordinary light brown sugar is the nearest thing; the pulp cooked down with it becomes quince cheese or membrillo in all but name.
- Yield and keepingExpect somewhere near a pint of juice per pound of fruit, less what the pulp holds back. The juice is not preserved and should be refrigerated and used within a day or two, or frozen until you are ready to make jelly.
Quinces were a standing feature of English kitchen gardens long before they became the curiosity they are now, valued precisely for the qualities that make them awkward to eat raw: hard flesh, high pectin and an intense perfume that survives cooking. The word marmalade descends from marmelo, Portuguese for quince, and the earliest marmalades were stiff quince pastes rather than anything to do with oranges. The insistence on colour reflects a period in which a clear, brilliantly tinted jelly was a mark of skill on the table, judged by eye before it was ever tasted.