QUINCE PASTE (MEMBRILLO)

Eat this with hard cheese or with cream cheese on toast.
You need:
4-5 quinces
water
sugar
1 lemon

Cut the quinces in chuncks (we do not peal nor core them) Boil the quinces in water. When they are soft drain off  the water and puree the quince meat with a hand food mill ( see our recipe for tomato sauce). Weight the pureed quinces and put them back in the pan. Add the same weight of sugar. Bring this to boil and then let it all simmer for 10-15 minutes until the paste gets dark brown (15 minutes more or less). Take the pan off the heat and  add the juice of a lemon ( to taste). Put the paste on a rectangular pastic or tin box and let it cool down completely . It should become solid after 1 hour or so. This lasts well in the fridge ( for a couple of months).

We did this so that the children would get to know what a quince was like. One of them thought it was a pear and tried a bit of raw quince - not very pleasant!