Hi All, Lane County Extension Service Master Gardener John Fischer here with KLCC's Good Gardening.
A few of you have probably tried membrillo. I'm guessing a very few of you have tried to make it. I'll have some recipe hints in a bit, but first more about the main ingredient Quince — a fruit with an exquisite odor, and an almost inedible sour fruit.
Quince jelly was my grandmother's use, and for many years - before commercial pectin became available - quince skins and seeds were cooked down to get jam setting pectin. Many homesteads included a quince tree so jams and jellies could be made thick enough to spread on their homemade sourdough bread.
And quince trees are the rootstock for most pear trees. You can get a quince to plant even now, although if a local nursery does not carry them, you may have to mail order or go to Portland.
But back to the membrillo. Cut the bad spots out of your fruit, remove the cores, and steam them until they are soft — like you were making apple sauce — except you are making quince sauce. Run it through a food mill, add sugar and slowly dry it in the oven on warm. It will go from pale yellow to brilliant orange.
The recipe calls for 1 cup of sugar for each cup of puree - I cut it WAY back. At a 5% ratio, the membrillo was tart and dry, but at 25% of the recommended sugar it came out fine.
Again, you likely won't make membrillo, or string dried peeled persimmons, or medlar spread. But whether you are varying a recipe, or experimenting with fruits and vegetables you have so far shunned, or never even heard of, keep an inquisitive mind about what kinds of things will grow in Oregon, and what you can do with them. It will make your yard and table more interesting.
Now where did I put that recipe for paw paw chutney ?
I'm John Fischer with Good Gardening.
