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| Quince Japonica |
Always good value in a small garden is the Quince Japonica (Chaenomeles japonica), for the bush has very early blossom, a welcome sight in any garden in Spring, but then goes on to be home to sparrows, a thorny barrier to cats, and bearer of green then mellow yellow hard waxy fruits. These make easy preserves; chutney or jam.
This year I have made Quince and Ginger Jam.
I am a terrible messy cook. I never prepare properly and do everything at a whim, so yesterday thought
"I'll do something with those quinces" whilst Colin was having his weekly prayer time with his Prayer Trio, and I knew I needed to be out of the way of the sitting room and gainfully occupied. I washed jam jars rescued from the crate for the Recycling Bins at Rudston, and then remembered I had decided to throw lids away this time .
The jam was a pleasure to make, so easy-put fruit in the pan , cover with water boil til soft , strain off all the pips, cores, and unknown bits , then 1pint pulp to 1lb Sugar, and as much ginger as you can grate.
The prayer trio had long gone, I was still testing for set on a cold saucer until after the BBC 4 radio play about Elvers had finished. Then I accidentally splashed all the jam pot covers with water so they looked wrinkled on the jars. It was silly enough that I had to empty 2 jars of gravy mix into small plastic containers to get more jars. I think I know which is chicken and which is beef as they are 2 different shades of brown but I don't suppose anyone will notice if Chicken Gravy accompanies sausages, they will just think Its a foretaste of Christmas Dinner heaven.
Call round if you want some jam, and I still have 5 pots of Quince Chutney from last year . No comments about the taste might be awful, it isnt ,any of it, just not made in factory conditions, and might only get a 4 in the window.
Call round if you want some jam, and I still have 5 pots of Quince Chutney from last year . No comments about the taste might be awful, it isnt ,any of it, just not made in factory conditions, and might only get a 4 in the window.
Yum. I'm dipping a cyber finger in one of the pots while you're back is turned.
ReplyDeleteSounds gorgeous, and as for messy, I can do messy too, in fact I've got a culinary degree in 'messy'.
I also have said plant, though only about 2 years old so has a long way to go.
I chose it because red is still fairly rare early in the year, and it makes a nice change from yellow.
Ours fruited in third year-a lovely shrub I agree.
ReplyDeleteYou should have taken a photo first of your lovely tray of quince. Wish you had made it a week earlier !!!!
ReplyDeleteWe used to have one of these but sadly it didn't like all the westerlies and rarely fruited. Glad to see another jam-maker in blogland. :-)
ReplyDeletePerpetua -Thanks for Following X
ReplyDeletethis takes me back we had a japocica when I was a boy I found your blog when looking for a photo to remind me of it. I am going back nearly fifty years and my memories fade as the years go by. The last quince Jam I had was given to me by an old lady who had a zimmer frame and I was delivering mea to her from the country butchers I worked for at the time. Your post has bought back many happy memories. I hope it was alright. XX Don
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