Bianca’s Bon Appetit

We mentioned the various small mini-harvests which have been on the go recently, especially the famous much-await Quince. Today Tuesday 4 March marks the day of the first Quince trial.

Unsure of the expected yield, Bianca selected 10 of the yellowest specimens out of the wrappings in the Grade 1 box and prepared a large bowl of lemon/cold water to receive the slices of peeled quince. The off-white flesh is inclined to discolour (brown) extremely quickly, similar to some apples, only much quicker.

It soon transpired that 10 Grade 1 quinces would be excessive for the slow boiler, so a second batch in a pot was prepared. The last of the quince syrup was used as a base for a trial batch of apple puree/preserve as well.

After quite a while, the quince slices start looking like the Real McCoy

Above: Canning the quinces prepared in the slow cooker. The show the distinctive pink colouration.

Above: Flood-filling the jars of the quick-stew batch of quinces.

Above: Cooling down, waiting for the lids to “pop” and ready for labelling…

Above: After all canning and washing up is complete, all the fellas pose for a group photo, with the tomato relish and apple stew taking up the front row. All ready for labelling and storage on the pantry shelf.

Final left to right: Quince Preserve with Cinnamon and Ginger; Lemon Cordial; Apple Pie Filler with Cinnamon and Raisins; Lemon Preserve; Quince Preserve with Cinnamon and Ginger and Tomato Relish.

Cooking with Lemons (Part II) – Cordial

The final cooking aspect of last Sunday’s garden harvest involved making a lemon syrup for a Lemon Cordial drink, to be diluted with water or carbonated water 1:5 or so.

The first step, surprise surprise, was to slice and prick as many lemons as you like, and then to juice them on the electric juicer, avoiding inclusion of the white yucky pith wherever possible. Then you add to the juice approximately a ton of white sugar, some Tartaric Acid and Epsom Salts (Magnesium Sulphate).  [Aside: Magnesium Sulphate is known as Epsom Salt, because the salt is mined at the springs near Epsom in Surrey]

And some other stuff, but I am only allowed to slice, juice and boil – the technical stuff such as ingredient selection and weighing is reserved for the Chartwell Ladies portfolio.

 
I made a technical observation that any world-class Lemon Cordial, worthy of a good reputation, should be transparent pale yellow in appearance, and not a murky mass. Therefore, I invented a straining device using a square of clean linen and 9 clothes pegs. This proved to be insufficient, as the pores in the linen cloth were inclined to block up very quickly.

Therefore, a second time, I invented the double-filtration method, in which the murky liquid is pre-sieved before entering the linen filter.

The double-filtration slowed down the overall process tremendously, but the result was most pleasing – a reasonably clear and transparent cordial. Yum.

The final yield was quite a number of litres of Lemon Cordial Concentrate, which can be diluted five times by volume to give a refreshing drink on a hot day.