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By Root 2391 0

keep them stirred all the time and clean off the scum—which will be very abundant—as it rises; then turn the preserve into a very clean sieve, and put into small jars the jelly which runs through it and which will be delicious in flavour and of the brightest colour. It should be carried immediately, when this is practicable, to an extremely cool but not a damp place and left there until perfectly cold. In Normandy, where the fruit is of richer quality than in England, this preserve is boiled only 2 minutes and is both firm and beautifully transparent.’

MARMELADE DE COINGS

QUINCE MARMALADE

It was from marmelo, the Portuguese name for quince, that the word marmalade came into the French and the English languages.

There are as many different recipes for quince marmalade as there are for orange marmalade. The theory is always much the same; the skin and the pips are used to make a foundation syrup which will jelly, and in which the sliced fruit is cooked.

The following recipe makes a very richly-flavoured preserve, for my taste a good deal superior to orange marmalade.

Rub the whole fruit with a cloth to remove the down; put it in a preserving pan and cover completely with cold water. Simmer until the fruit is soft enough to pierce with a thin skewer; don’t let it cook until the skins break. Extract the fruit, and when cool enough to handle, peel, slice and core it. Return the cores and the skins to the same water in which the fruit has cooked, and boil until reduced by about a third, when the juice will have just begun to take on the characteristic cornelian colour of quince jelly.

Strain this through a cloth. Weigh the sliced fruit; add its equivalent in white sugar. Put the sugar and fruit, together with the strained juice, back into the preserving pan and boil gently until the fruit is soft and translucent and the juice sets to jelly. The best way of ascertaining that the juice will set is to watch until it starts coating the back of the spoon, and slides off with a gentle plop when the spoon is shaken. Skim off any scum that has risen to the surface before turning off the flame. Put into warmed jam jars, cover with a round of paper dipped in brandy and tie down when cool.

PÂTE DE COINGS

QUINCE PASTE

Here is the easiest country method of making thick quince paste. Rub the quinces with a cloth to remove the down. Put them, whole and unpeeled, into a big, tall earthenware crock or jar, without any water. Leave them, covered, in a low oven until they are soft but not breaking up. When they are cool enough to handle, slice them, without peeling them, into a bowl, discarding the cores and any bruised or hard pieces. Put the sliced fruit through the food mill. Weigh it. Add an equal quantity of white sugar. Boil in a preserving pan, stirring nearly all the time until the paste begins to candy and come away from the bottom as well as the sides of the pan. Take care to use a long-handled wooden spoon for stirring, and to wrap your hand in a cloth, for the boiling paste erupts and spits. Continue stirring after the heat has been turned off until boiling has ceased. With a big soup ladle, fill shallow rectangular earthenware or tin dishes with the paste. Leave to get quite cold. Next day put these moulds into the lowest possible oven of a solid fuel cooker, or into the plate drawer of a gas or electric stove, while the oven is on, for several hours, until the paste has dried out and is quite firm. Turn out the slabs of paste, wrap them in greaseproof paper and store them in tins in a dry larder.

This paste is cut into squares or lozenges to serve as a dessert or as a sweetmeat for the children.

If you have no suitable utensil for the initial cooking of the fruit in the oven, it can be softened in a steamer over a big saucepan of boiling water.

MARMELADE DE PÊCHES (1)

PEACH JAM

Peach jams are a speciality of Apt, the centre of the fruit-preserving industry of Provence, but this is a household rather than a commercial recipe. White and yellow peaches are equally good for this jam.

Immerse the fruit