Mincemeat and Quince

The days are getting shorter and the trees are beginning to shed their leaves.      The quince tree has done magnificently this year.  The fruit enormous and abundant.   I try to leave them on the tree as long as possible, but the severe winds of the last few days have meant that I had to pick them before they fell - quince are very easily bruised and I didn't want to waste any of them.

A few slices of quince really elevate the flavour of an apple crumble and my family love apple crumble for pudding.    Quince are also very good roasted in with a lot of root vegetables and onions.   This time of year I also drop a few slices of quince into the pot when I make a vat of spinach soup just to add a bit of punch.   

Quince Vinegar is my favourite and I have already made 5 litres of it.   Allowed to mature, meld and mellow for a few weeks, it will be perfect for making salad dressings and for seasoning food.   I plan to make another brew which can be put into pretty bottles and given away as a small additional Christmas gift.

Quince Marmalade, Membrillo, and Quince Jelly are also on the list of things to make.  Quince will be used in puddings and cakes and some will be frozen for future use.   I may even make a bottle or two of Quince Vodka to go along with the gifts of Quince Vinegar.

The remainder will be given away to neighbours, family and friends.

Today, however, I really wanted to get started on making mincemeat, ready for Christmas.

A quick rummage through the pantry and store cupboard soon showed me that I had lots of tail ends of bags of dried fruits which needed to be used up.   So if this years mincemeat is a success it can never truly be replicated because it is a real mixture of the conventional and the exotic.  The usual spices, some veggie suet, brown sugar,  zest and juice of a couple of large oranges, a very large dollop of home made bitter orange marmalade, and some home-grown Bramley apples went into the mix (I could have used quince).

As I came to add the apples it became apparent that I needed to get out my really enormous mixing bowl.  

The smaller bowl is very large; the other one is huge and very old. It belonged to my late uncle.  Quite why he had such an enormous bowl is a bit of a mystery as he only cooked for himself and my aunt and they were frugal eaters.

The bowl has some cracks, one of them quite large, but I cherish it because he used it; he was my favourite uncle.

The orange juice, chopped apples and deliciously bitter orange marmalade were stirred into the mix before I clingfilmed it and set it aside in the pantry for the night.

Earlier this morning I decanted it into a large roasting pan, covered it with foil ready for a two-and-a-half hour bake in a very low oven.    Recipe and photographs to follow in a day or two.

This is Millie in her favourite kitchen perch.  She likes to oversee all food prep from her vantage point.   I'm not sure how much longer she will be able to squeeze her rather ample self into that basket.    

Four Noggins/Gill = One Imperial Pint = Twenty Fluid Ounces

My daughter likes to use cup measurements, I prefer pounds and ounces.    She teaches Reception and first year children, so her baking classes are designed to make life easy for her and the children, I understand that.      I am always perplexed at the very idea of measuring out a cup of butter, for example.  It sounds very messy, not that the infants in her classes would be bothered, the more mess the better!    

Of course many of todays recipes are given in grams, another alien concept to me; difficult for me to visualise.    Wherever possible I stick to good old Imperial pounds and ounces, although I must admit that digital scales make using the alternative very easy.   

I stick to my beloved Imperial measurements.  Is one allowed to say that these days?

I celebrate Pecks, Gills, Bushels, Noggins and Ounces and I delight in the fact that my mother taught me that a pint of water weighs a pound and a quarter.  Pounds, ounces, stones.

How agile our minds must have been as we answered arithmetic questions which called for  money to be calculated in £'s, shillings and pence - with 12 pence to the shilling, 20 shillings to the £, and 21/- to the Guinea.    

I am old enough to remember being able to purchase some sort of small sweetie from the corner shop for the princely sum of one farthing, four of which made one old penny.   This stimulates other memories of Black Jacks, Fruit Salads and a sour sherbet sweet like yellow sugar,  into which we would stab a  wet finger, delighting in the sharp sour taste and the fun of ending up with a finger which became yellow stained and made us look as though we smoked forty cigarettes a day.     

I digress.   Forget the sweets, celebrate the old Imperial measurements.   Mini rant over, my granddaughter has arrived.

Hunting for a Recipe

A few years ago I was whizzing through the abebooks website when my eye was caught by the artwork on one of these recipe book covers.   I clicked on the listing, looked at the photographs, and decided to order the book.  

I should state here and now that I am not pro-hunting, so let's not have any nonsense about that.    They are recipe books, plain and simple.

One book grew into a small collection within my general collection.

Originally they were sold to raise funds for the hunts they represented, but that was thirty or forty years ago.  

The recipes are many and varied, often presented in the donor's own handwriting, on their headed notepaper...surely something which people wouldn't dream of allowing these days?    (I have clipped it off this recipe.)

The recipes are many and varied, heavily weighted on the alcohol side.  Take this recipe for 'Batchelors (sic) Nightcap'  Take one bottle of whisky.  Remove cork.  Pour contents into cut glass tumbler.  Half fill.  Add water to taste and consume immediately.  

Ginger Brush - 3/4 dark Barbados rum with 1/4 King's Ginger Liqueur  (sounds delicious) but I am not sure I would like to try the Coleman Mix which is equal measures of cherry brandy and sloe gin, nor do I like the sound of the Percy Special which is equal measures of whisky and cherry brandy.   

A contributor gave her recipe for a concoction to go into her hip flask, she named it: Sabina's Dutch Courage: Half a bottle of Bell's whisky and half a bottle of Tio Pepe sherry - stir and pour.   It goes straight to the head, is tasty and thirst quenching and fills me with courage as I gallop towards an obstacle.  A good drink out of season too - a good slug before putting the bikini on for the first time is a great help.  Sabina.

Most books also contain hints and tips to do with horses and hunting kit.

It is quite a while since I wrote a blog post and goodness have I become rusty.   This small offering has taken almost a week to write.   In the old days I could dash off a post very quickly.