Cheese and Quince

There is a storm on the way. It's early on a mid October morning and the weather on the island has taken a turn. Fat rain droplets crash down on my porch as the sharp wind rattles my cottage windows and outside a faint pur of thunder resonates through the murky dawn light. As I prepare my morning coffee in my small kitchen the weather worsens. Rain lashes down on the cottage garden, now absent of all its usual life and activity. Neighbourhood cats normally laid out under the sprawling olive and lemon tress are noticeably absent, I imagine them scattered through the village taking temporary shelter under obsolete old trailers, shivering and woeful as they wait out the storm.

On the far side of my garden the large old quince tree stands tall and strong against the elements. As I stare through the rain I recall a warm November morning three years previous and a day spent making jam from the quince as a late autumn warm wind blew through the cottage kitchen. Today the fruit is slick with fresh rainwater, the bulbous yellow fruit hanging heavy on the bow, a few already having proven too much and lie rotting amongst the small pebbles. Under the tree, large puddles of rainwater have collected around them as they lie exposed and useless, and so with best laid planned put to one side, I venture out into the autumn rain to fill a basket.

I remember the first time I had quince. It was at my grandfathers cottage in a small village somewhere near the welsh border. I never knew him very well but the memories of those infrequent visits remain fond memories from my childhood. A long drive to a thatched cottage in the English countryside, where burst river banks and slow moving sheep held up progress. We arrived to wonderful smells from the Arga as an eye fillet of beef wellington neared completion. While we waited, my brother and eye watched old scrawled upon video tapes of Swallows and Amazons under the low beams of the cottage or went on treasure hunts in the big garden. It was after after dinner with our bellies full of beef and pastry, that my grandfather brought out a small cheese board accompanied by a bright red jelly. Greedily and with childhood abandon I unknowingly stacked a cracker high and had my first taste.

Back on Paxos it was this sense of a cheese and quince that became the inspiration for the dish. A seasonal dish full of sweetness and spice, evocative and playful that bridged the gap between the savouriness of the traditional cheeseboard and the indulgence of a good dessert.

Spice poached quince, blue cheese ice cream and ginger cake

I love a cheeseboard. For me there is no better way to end a good meal than the addition of contrasting cheeses accompanied by a tart chutney and soft sweet biscuits. Cheeses differing in maturity, textures and tastes, maybe a goats, always a blue and then something tangy and hard. A good chutney is a must of course, soft fruit alive with acid, spice and sugar and then a biscuit, interesting and unusual is always appreciated.

The first thing to make is the blue cheese ice cream. To a mixing bowl add, four large egg yolks and one hundred grams of caster sugar and with an electric whisk blend it together until the eggs become pale and fluffy, doubling in volume. To check rub your forefinger and thumb through the mixture, it should be smooth and not at all grainy. In a pan heat four hundred grams of double cream and one hundred grams of milk. Bring the cream and milk to a gentle boil and then take off the heat. Add around a third of the cream to the eggs and stir continuously, once incorporated slowly add the rest making sure to continuously stir. Once all the cream has been added return all the mixture to the pan and heat slowly to exactly 71'c. The mixture should be thick and able to coat the back of a spoon. To the hot mixture, crumble in one hundred grams of a creamy blue cheese and stir to melt. Once the blue cheese has melted, pass the mixture through a fine sieve and chill in the fridge overnight. Once chilled churn the ice cream in an ice cream maker for around thirty minutes before transferring to a container in the freezer to set for around two hours.

Next add water, lemon juice, lemon zest, cinnamon stick and star anise in a medium pan over a low heat. Stir continually until all the sugar has dissolved. Meanwhile, peel each quince and cut into quarters, removing the cores. Add the quince quarters to the syrup and cover with a circle of baking paper with a small hole cut in the middle to allow steam to escape. Simmer for 2 hours or until the fruit is a deep red and tender and the syrup has reduced.

To make the gingerbread cake. preheat oven to 175'c and grease and flour a nine inch square pan. In a large bowl, cream together one hundred grams of caster sugar and one hundred and twenty grams of butter. Beat in one egg, and mix in three hundred and forty grams of molasses. Next in a bowl, sift together three hundred grams of flour, one and a half teaspoons of baking soda, a teaspoon each of cinnamon, ginger, and half a teaspoon each of cloves and salt. Blend into the creamed mixture and stir in one hundred and twenty grams of hot water. Pour into the prepared pan and bake for 1 hour. Once the cake is baked take it out of the oven and allow to cool.

To assemble the dish use a cookie cutter to cut out a circle roughly five cm across and one cm thick of the ginger cake and place in the centre of the plate. Cluster the poached segments of the quince around the ginger cake and add segmented orange and small clumps of the ginger cake loosely torn from the cake. Glaze the quince by drizzling over the reduced poaching liquor and finish the dish with a scoop of the blue cheese ice cream.