Turkish Quinces
- 3 quinces, peeled, halved and cored (keep the cores)
- Juice from a lemon (keep the seeds)
- 1.5 cups water
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 2 cinnamon sticks
- 7-8 cloves
- Peel from 1/2 a lemon
- 75g/2.65ozs butter
- 1/2 cup mascarpone to serve
- 4 tablespoons icing or confectioners sugar
- 4 tablespoons chopped pistachio to serve
Step 1 - Douse the quinces in the lemon juice. Place a large pot onto boil with the water, sugar, cinnamon sticks, cloves and lemon zest. Bring to a boil and then add the halved quinces, cores and lemon seeds to the pot. Simmer on low for 40 minutes. Then turn over and cook for 30 minutes until tender.
Step 2 - Carefully remove from the syrup (which can be reserved and served mixed with a soda water or it goes really well as a cocktail base syrup because of all the spices). I usually cool these off completely and keep them in the fridge in the syrup until I want to serve them.
Step 3 - Brown the butter by placing it in a heavy bottomed saucepan on medium to high heat. Allow to bubble away and turn brown-it will take a few minutes and will be ready when there is a gorgeous nutty aroma. Remove from the heat, use a sieve to get rid of the scum and pour off the golden butter at the top leaving the grainy bits in the pan.
Step 4 - When you want to serve them, preheat oven to 190c/380F and place the quinces in an oven proof dish. Place 1 tablespoon of the browned butter on top and heat for 10 minutes. Place the quince on a serving plate. Mix the mascarpone and icing sugar and dollop a tablespoon on top of the macscarpone and sprinkle with chopped pistachios. I also added some edible rose petals for decoration and you can also use a teaspoon of halva.