The Local Food Report: Marmelada

Louiza Azancot is Portuguese, at least originally. She moved to D.C. in the eighties, and to Chatham a few years back, but if her kitchen is any indication, I think she's still Portuguese at heart. I met her at the Orleans Farmers' Market, where she was very carefully picking out quince for marmelada.

Marmelada, if you've never had it, is nothing like marmalade. It is made of quince, not oranges, and although it is a kind of fruit preserve, it is much more firm than the citrus stuff. It's so hard that the Portuguese eat it in slices, alongside a piece of banana maybe or plain or with a hunk of cheese. It's sweet, and pink, and almost floral in the way it smells and tastes.

Louiza learned to make it from her mother, and she's been looking for quince on the Cape now for four years. Someone brought in a batch from Westport the other day—from Noquochoke Orchards—and when Louiza saw the fruit, she was thrilled. Marmelada is a lot of work, she says—boiling and slicing and straining and canning—but it's worth it in the end. It's a tradition from a poor country, and the whole point is to cook down the fruit into a state where it will survive the winter—in bowls covered with parchment paper, left to dry on a cool windowsill. That way, when all that's around is bitter oranges and cheese, people have a reminder of plenty, something to eat.

Of course, these days, Louiza could just go to the supermarket in January for fruit or store away a root cellar of apples, but she says she'd rather not do that. It's tradition, and besides, eating strawberries in the middle of the winter—it's weird. She'd rather eat marmelada, lots of it—even if that's all there is six months of the year.


Click on over here to see what farms in our region are growing quince. And know that for the next few weeks at least, vendors will be selling quince from Noquochoke Orchards in Westport at the farmers' markets in Provincetown and Orleans.

LOUIZA AZANCOT'S MARMELADA

These are rough measurements. Louiza says she doesn't measure; she just tastes and adjusts. Don't be afraid to improvise—according to Louiza, that's what it's all about.

several pounds quince
a pinch of salt
lemon rind
1 cinnamon stick
granulated sugar

Peel and chop the quince. Reserve the skin and the core and put the flesh of the fruit in a pot with cold water (this will stop it from oxidizing). The water should cover the fruit. Add the salt, lemon rind, and cinnamon stick. Bring everything to a boil and simmer until the fruit is very soft.

Turn off the heat and remove the lemon rind and the cinnamon. Strain the fruit and reserve the water.

Blend the quince to a smooth puree using a blender or food processor. Weigh the puree. Put it back in a heavy-bottomed pot and add 2/3 of its weight in sugar. Cook the sugared puree, mixing it gently with a wooden spoon so that it does not coat the bottom of the pot. When you can carve a "runway" and see the bottom of the pan, the marmelada is ready. (The longer it cooks the harder it gets and then it is easier to slice. )

Pour the marmelada into bowls, and cover the surface of the preserve with rounds of parchment paper. Let them dry for a day or two on the counter of a windowsill; then store in a cool, dry place, or in the refrigerator. Stored properly, the preserve should keep through the winter.

GELEIA DE MARMELO

Louiza makes quince jelly with the reserved cores and skin from the quince, after she's finished the marmelada. She says it's much softer and more like a typical jelly—the kind you spread on toast.

reserved quince cores and skin (see marmelada recipe, above)
quince cooking water (again, see above)
granulated sugar

Combine the reserved cores and skin and cooking water in a large pot. Bring to a boil over high heat and turn down to low. Simmer for at least an hour, or until the water is reduced by half.

Take the pot off the heat and strain and filter the juice to remove any impurities. Measure the water. For each pint of liquid add a pound of sugar. Combine the sugar and the strained juice in a heavy-bottomed pot and bring the mixture to a boil, then turn it down to a simmer. When the juice begins to sheet off a spoon, it has reached the gelling point. Pour it into hot, sterile, jars, and seal with sterile lids. The jelly will keep for a year un-opened.

Pizazz

I know this may look like plain jane applesauce, but it's not. It has pizazz, and fire and spice. It bites.

And that's a good thing, because to be honest, I was getting a bit tired of plain jane. It's been apple season for a while now, and we were overdue for a change.

Insert cranberries. Tart, saucy, firm—the perfect antidote to jane. Colorful, too, in this drab and dreary weather.

They were just what was called for, given the quality of the apples in the fridge. The once firm balls were terrible: mushy, mealy, soft. They had every quality I dislike in an apple, redeemed only by a bit of sweetness and a fine red coat. Luckily, they could still be cooked, and with the company of cranberries, well enough to hope this simple act would save them.

Oh, did it save them. It turned them from white to pink. It kicked up sweet with tart, textured soft with firm, swept out undertones of September crisp. It was not plain jane. Even the skeptic in my house agreed; this was very good applesauce.

It was easy, too, same as any plain jane. Meld fruit, water, and heat, and you really can't go wrong. Along with a food mill and two strong arms, this is all you need. A jar goes a long way for storage, and a nice big bowl helps for snacking. Beyond that, it's cranberries and a few bad apples. So don't work too hard, and enjoy.

APPLESAUCE WITH PIZAZZ

Makes 1 quart

Place 5 to 6 apples, medium size, soft, and sweet, in a large soup pot. Add 1 cup cranberries, fresh, and 1/2 cup quince, sliced (optional). Cover bottom of pot with about 1 to 2 inches water, cover, and bring to a boil. Turn heat down to medium low, and continue cooking until fruit is soft. Crank through a food mill with a bowl beneath to catch the sauce. Serve warm or cold, or, if you're as strange as me, sometimes with a splash of cream.

Quince, meet toast

This is what happens when you leave a quince unattended. I hate to admonish a fruit so early in the morning, but really, it's been quite out of hand.

I'd been watching it for nearly a month, when its bedfellows had disappeared rather suddenly into the steam pot, and finally come to rest in a batch of fruit leather. It had been softening, slowly, but no where near the pace of, say, an apple or a pear.

I had neglected it, certainly, but I hardly expected the redress I received this morning. I had tiptoed, sleepy eyed, into the kitchen in search of breakfast. I'd seen the quince, complacent, and halved it face down in a pan to poach. With the stove at a simmer and an inch or so of water in the pot, I hurried up to the shower to clean up for the day. By the time I returned, a chaotic hiss had broken loose. The water was gone, the quince black, and the pot bottom scorched beyond repair.

It seemed so personal, somehow, like the quince had known my plan and sat eager in rebellion. Still, I managed to quell my disappointment, scraped the burnt skin and seeds from the fruit's surface, and mashed the remaining flesh with a bit of water and sugar. I pinched in nutmeg and cinnamon, set it back on the stove, and watched carefully over my unruly charge.

By the time the toast was hot, fruit and spice had softened into a thick paste. With a bit of butter and spread like jam, it turned out far too good for rebuke.

QUINCE BUTTER

Serves 4 

Poach 1 quince until soft (taking care to continue adding water). Remove skin and core. Mash with 1/2 cup water, 2 tablespoons sugar, 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg, and 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon. Cook over medium heat, stirring often, until mixture thickens into a paste the consistency of apple or pumpkin butter. This makes enough spread to serve four on breakfast toast.

Quince leather

They started out as poached quince—the fruit leather, that is. I peeled the strange green crosses between apple and pair, sliced them down the middle, and set them in to boil. They simmered away, in honey and lemon, leaching tannins and rigidity until finally they sat, soft as mush.

The trouble was, the peculiar, impossibly hard fruits were now too soft. A few days earlier, when I'd picked them up at the market, this had been a mistake impossible to imagine. You could have thrown one from a moving car, stem and all, and found it still intact after the wheels ran it over.

A few of the poached halves were still good, of course, but most had gone over the tipping point from tender to mush. We ate those that hadn't, drizzled with the honey-lemon sauce, a sprinkle of salt, and a pinch of fresh ground nutmeg, and I threw those that had into the food processor.

I'd been wanting to make fruit leather for a long time now, to see if it was really possible like they said in the books. I'd never had the treat homemade, only bundled in plastic and tucked into lunchboxes, but I was eager to give it my best.

Without a dehydrator, this meant careful work. After pureeing the soft fruit with a few spoonfuls of honey, I spread it on a well-oiled cookie sheet with a thermometer on top, and sat down to work. Every hour or so, I turned on the oven to 200 degrees. The mercury shot up to 150, and I turned it off again—my attempt at a homemade machine.

With all but the middle strips, I overshot of course. Afraid of undercooking, I hardened the thin edges into long, brittle crisps. Relinquishing them to trial and error, I sat, marveling nonetheless, at the ones I'd managed. The morning's wet paste of fruit and honey had dried into a pliable, sticky sheet, just like those of the third-grade lunchroom. I took a bite; the flavor was there, and the texture, too, like a chewy bite of ambrosial nectar.

I wrapped what I'd made in thin, wax strips. The paper kept the leather from sticking; a rubber band offered to secure. Tomorrow, I'm hoping for another batch—this time, aiming for perfection.

QUINCE LEATHER

Fills 1 cookie sheet with 1/8 inch pulp layer

Poach 4 quince, peeled, seeded, and cut in half, in 3 cups water, 1 cup honey, and the peels and juice of 1 lemon. Bring to a boil and then simmer until tender, about one half hour, turning fruit occasionally.

Blend quince in food processor with several tablespoons honey. The mixture should be easily spreadable; if not, add more honey or a bit of the poaching liquid. Spread on a well-oiled cookie sheet or screen, and dry in the oven (kept around 135 degrees) for 4-8 hours. It helps to keep on the convection fan, if you have one. Midway through, when the paste is beginning to harden, cut the leather into strips and flip. This will make removal and drying faster and easier. When dry and pliable but not crisp, roll up in wax paper and tie or secure with rubber band.