Apply long, slow cooking time to the quince, something sweet in the form of sugar or honey, and perhaps a spoonful of spice – star anise, cinnamon, ginger – and you will have a fragrant, tender and extraordinary fruit. But the quince has a history of being used in savoury recipes, too: as a stuffing for lamb, its flesh grated and mixed with cumin and soft, buttered onions; stuffed with rice, dried mint and baked, and in a stew with sweet, mild spices.
It is easy enough to stuff a leg of lamb, especially if you ask the butcher to remove the bones for you, but I always end up with too much stuffing and the string inevitably comes undone in the oven. A better idea, I think, is to pile the stuffing in the roasting tin and let the lamb cook on top of it. As the meat roasts, the juices trickle down into the stuffing.
The result is one of the best lamb roasts I have had for ages. The skin crisped nicely, the stuffing was fragrant and moistened with the cooking juices from the meat. It also meant I got rid of two large fruits in one go – quinces tend to hang about a bit in this kitchen.
The scent of the quince is often subtly intoxicating (though I have met a few that seem to have no perfume whatsoever.) As it cooks, slowly, in sugar syrup, the kitchen fills with a scent that is partly rose, partly spice. Fruit and sugar are in the air.
I often bake whole quinces in a covered pot. You'll need a large deep pot and just a bit of patience. Add a little orange juice, a clove or two, a coin or two of crystallised ginger and the results are like pale-pink baked apples. Cream is essential.
The ones on the stove at the moment are split in half and simmering in a not-too-dry cider with a cinnamon stick, a few cloves and a vanilla pod. When the fruit is soft and changed from almost white to deep amber, I shall stir a spoonful or two of fruit jelly into the syrup. I want my sweet quinces to glow in the bowl. It is nearly Christmas after all.
Roast lamb with quince bulgar
Ask the butcher to bone the leg of lamb. If you have a large roasting tin, you could tuck the bones into the stuffing, so that they can quietly do their stuff while the meat roasts.
Serves 6
onion 1, large
quinces 2
olive oil 4 tbsp
lamb a leg, about 2kg
bulgar wheat 200g
Peel and roughly chop the onion, then peel, core and roughly chop the quinces. Put both the fruit and the onions into a roasting tin with the olive oil, and leave them to cook for 15 to 20 minutes over a moderate heat, seasoning with salt and pepper and stirring from time to time, until all is starting to soften.
Set the oven at 180C/gas mark 4.
Pour the bulgar wheat into the roasting tin, followed by 500ml of boiling water from the kettle. Stir, then cover the tin lightly with a foil lid and bring to the boil. Lower the heat a little so that the wheat continues to cook at a simmer for five minutes, then remove it from the heat.
Open the boned leg of lamb out flat and season it all over, generously, with salt and pepper. Place the meat, fat side up, on top of the bulgar and quince. Trickle a little oil over the surface of the meat – just enough to moisten it – then roast it for about 1 hour, until the fat is crisp and the meat juices have soaked down into the bulgar below.
To serve, remove the meat to a chopping board, let it rest, covered with foil, for 10 minutes, then cut it into thick slices. Serve on warm plates with spoonfuls of the quince bulgar.
Mulled quince
I used a fresh, medium-dry cider here, with its deep appley scents and a little fizz. But if you are using a dry or a very strongly flavoured cider, then make sure you up the honey quota.
Serves 4
quinces 2, large
medium cider 750ml
honey 3 tbsp
vanilla pod
cinnamon stick
cloves 4
fruit jelly apple or redcurrant, perhaps 1-2 tbsp
Peel the quinces, halve them, and put them in a deep pan. Pour over the cider, then add the honey, tuck in the vanilla pod, the cinnamon and the cloves, then bring to the boil.
Turn the heat down so that the quinces simmer quietly, partially covered by a lid, for about 45 minutes, until they are soft and tender, but not yet falling apart. You may have to turn them from time to time, pushing them down under the liquid.
When the quinces are tender lift them out of their syrup, turn up the heat and add the fruit jelly. As it dissolves, the jelly will sweeten and enrich the colour of the syrup.
Pour the syrup over the quinces and leave them in their syrup until ready to serve.
Eat warm or hot. If you want to eat them cold then chill them thoroughly in the fridge for a good 2 or 3 hours after cooling.
Email Nigel at nigel.slater@observer.co.uk. Follow Nigel on Twitter @NigelSlater
