How to make a quick, simple and delicious quince chutney.
‘Tis the season for quince here, and the quinces that grow around us are amazing. They are large, yellow, fragrant fruit that grow plentifully on trees in the local kitchen gardens. We don’t have a quince tree on our land – something I hope to remedy at some point in the future. There are wild trees growing around us so we set out one morning in high hopes of foraging some. However, it seems the wild trees are not having a good year and we completely failed to find any fruit on our wonderings.
All was not lost though, as a neighbor had a glut and offered us a bag full which I pounced on immediately. The locals here make a type of marmalade from quince but I’ve never cooked with quince and wanted to try something a bit different. There doesn’t seem to be a tradition of chutneys here (and coming from the UK chutney is a significant food group in our house) so I decided to try my hand at quince chutney. I wanted a quick and simple recipe, but still delicious and with lots of flavour. I looked for recipes on the internet but nothing quite tickled my fancy so I decided to improvise…
How to make quince chutney.
Here’s the recipe for this quick, simple and delicious quince chutney. I cooked the quinces for a bit to make sure they were tender; I roasted mine as I think this gives the best flavour. In went a whole chilli, ginger, paprika, mustard seeds, star anise, salt, pepper and a cinnamon stick. I was aiming for a sweet chutney with a little kick, so the spices were of the more fragrant type. Then I added a cup or so of brown sugar, and a few glugs of cider vinegar. This bubbled away until it was thick and a spoon drawn through the middle of the pan left a trail.
a whole chilli, a good amount of ginger, paprika, mustard seeds, star anise, salt, pepper and a cinnamon stick. I was aiming for a sweet chutney with a little kick, so the spices were of the more fragrant type. Then I added a cup or so of brown sugar, and a few glugs of cider vinegar. This bubbled away until it was thick and a spoon drawn through the middle of the pan left a trail.
I’d pre-prepared some jars by washing and heat sterilizing them, then filled them with hot chutney after removing the spices. I sealed them whilst they were still hot. I stored the cooled jars in the larder to open in a few weeks. The flavor gets better as it matures, so my husband was under strict instructions not to open a jar for 2 weeks. We’ll see how that one goes…
2 weeks later (and jars still intact) we broke out the cheese and biscuits and tried the chutney. It was a big success, spicy and fragrant with a lovely flavor. The chutney was so nice I sent a few jars to family back in the UK to enjoy the flavor of Alentejo in Winter.
