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 I) – Curd

Having completed and bottled the Plum Jam, the Chartwell Ladies next tackled the huge harvest of lemons. Lemons big, medium and small.

What to do with all these lemons? A large and very heavy Garby bagful. Google gave us at least 45 uses for lemon in one single article alone! After a lot of thought and even more discussion, the decision was made: Lemons Part I would consist of Lemon Curd and Lemon Preserve, while Lemons Part II would see an attempt at Lemon Cordial.

This post shows some of their labours at producing the Curd and the Lemon Preserve.

 
The first step in most recipes using Lemons is to extract as much juice as possible, without contaminating the supernatant fluid with the bitter pith. So, we set up a sort of conveyor belt system, starting with slicing and pricking the lemons, then juicing (fortunately with an electrical juicer – nice). The juice get strained in a multiple strain operation to minimise the bitter stuff as far as possible.

After combining the juice and sugar, the eggs are blended into the mix using a double-boiler set-up. This is the tricky bit, where the stirrer must get the consistency to the correct viscosity, without allowing the egg to scramble.

I think.

Or something like that: Don’t look at me – I had the technical engineering job of slicing the lemons. Oh, and slicing my left thumb slightly, leading to my retirement to the TV on sick leave for the rest of the evening. The lemon juice, by the way, did wonders for the wound.

Naturally, I couldn’t claim any involvement in the preparation of the Preserved Lemons, because of the unfortunate thumb incident, but I understand it consists of slicing lemons into 6 segments, removal of the excess pith and other white stuff, and then dabbing in salt, and finally packing in a sterilised jar as in the large one below.

I think. Or something like that.

The Lemon Preserve in the large jar on the left, the Lemon Curd (Yum) is in the centre bottle, and the Plum Jam in the jar on the right.