And winter is a great time for cooking jam and jam, fragrant confiture and spicy sauce. Slowly, fantasizing and following traditions. I propose to cook confiture from nutmeg pumpkin and fragrant quince.

1 kg butternut squash pulp

1.5 quince fruits

1 st. teaspoon chaenomeles seeds

600 g sugar

150 ml of water.

If you do not have a stock of chaenomeles (Japanese quince) seeds, it does not matter, your confiture will simply not be as thick. A decoction of the seeds is a natural gelling agent.

But in order. I cut the pumpkin into thin slices (size and shape do not matter). I cleared the quince from the skin and seed chamber. I didn’t throw away the waste, but put it in a saucepan, added 1 tablespoon of chaenomelis seeds, poured it with water and put it on a low fire to boil.

In the meantime, cut the quince, mixed with sugar and pumpkin and left for 30 minutes.

She carefully strained the decoction of quince waste and poured it into the mixture of pumpkin and quince. Put on low heat and cook for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. I removed the zest from the lemon, added it to the boiling confiture, after 10 minutes I squeezed the lemon juice there, and after 5 minutes I removed the confiture from the fire.

Well, then the submersible blender did its job, giving the mass uniformity and bright color. I wanted to pour the mass into small beautiful jars, but I remembered in time that by morning the confiture would be very thick. And how to lure him out of the narrow necks. So I put it in wide-mouthed containers.

Tasty, sweet, with a slight sourness. The subtle aroma of lemon mixed with the aroma of quince. Well, the color is just a fairy tale. I want to live, despite the frosts and brutal atmospheric pressure.

Quince is a healthy fruit, however, due to its hard texture and strong sour astringent taste, it is rarely eaten raw. Japanese quince, which differs from ordinary quince in miniature size, is generally used as a decorative decoration for a personal plot. Meanwhile, quince desserts are very tasty, even exquisite.

How to make quince syrup

The easiest way to dispose of quince is to cut it into slices, sprinkle with plenty of sugar and wait until a sweet fragrant syrup is formed. It is he, as well as candied quince slices, that are added to tea or a drink is made by filling the slices with water. However, it is much more interesting to cook jam from quince.

Japanese quince jam - the main thing:

There are surprisingly many recipes, different, “clean” and with additives, sweet and sour-sweet, prepared according to a quick recipe and according to the classic “long-playing” one. Let's start with what make Japanese quince jam- a step-by-step recipe with pictures is attached so that there is no difficulty - according to the 5-minute principle. This is when the jam is brought to a boil + a maximum of 5 minutes, then cools completely, again to a boil, cools down again - and so on until the result is achieved.

In total, the process of making Japanese quince jam will take 3-4 days, but, as you already understood, this will not cause much trouble. Jam does not require continuous attention. Each stage takes no more than 5 minutes, and you will gradually notice how the mass changes color from lemon yellow to amber.

Ingredients

• quince 500 g
• sugar 350 g
• water 150 ml

How to make Japanese quince jam

On a note:

• in total, quince jam needs to be boiled about 6-8 times, but you can continue this process until you get the desired color and taste;
• if the mass becomes thick during the cooking process, you can additionally add water at any stage, while adjusting the density of the jam;
• more sugar can be added, but for my taste, the indicated amount is enough;
• quince jam is an excellent filling for pies, pies and rolls.

After exuberant cherry blossoms, chaenomeles bloomed in our garden. I was awakened at six in the morning by nightingale trills. This has always been the case for the last twenty-five years, since we built a house by the lake and planted a garden. The nightingale trills also wake up my thoughts, set me in a creative mood. They know that morning thoughts are the clearest, that they need to sit down at the computer and work. At this time of silence and nightingale trills, thoughts are easier to keep in check. There is a long day ahead.

An hour later I went out into the garden to work. There was no winter this year, just a long and endless wet autumn smoothly turned into a long wet spring. And only when the Japanese quince blossomed, and the nightingale sang, warm sunny May came. It seems that spring, washed by endless rains, decided to bloom with bright colors of blooming gardens, as if a mysterious woman, keeping her secret, went out into the field and wove wreaths of wild flowers.

Why you need a northern lemon in the garden

When I first became interested in gardening in the 70s, I read an article in horticultural magazines about an amazing fruit plant, chaenomeles, and saw photographs of entire plantations of this plant in the Baltic states. Journalists wrote that from these low bushes you can collect up to a ton from a hundred of “northern lemons” and brew millions of cans of quince-flavored jam for the whole country.
So in my garden the first plant was Japanese quince, or chaenomeles.
Five seedlings were brought to me from the Baltic States. I landed them on the best bed and began to care. A year later, the bushes beautifully bloomed with bright red roses, all the gardening neighbors came to admire them, and in the fall, a fruit grew on each branch from each flower, thickly sticking around the branch, as if it were sea buckthorn. The fruits were the size of a medium-sized apple, all of different shapes, dense and bumpy.
At the end of September, the fruits turned yellow on the sunny side. We collected the first basket and sat down to drink tea with this northern lemon. They cut the dense fruit into slices, it tasted sour and more fragrant than lemon, praised the new garden culture and put the quince in the refrigerator for storage.

Subsequently, it somehow turned out that if there were natural lemons and chaenomeles on the table in a vase, then everyone put a slice of lemon in their tea, it was somehow juicier and more familiar to taste than hard tart quince.
We also made quince jam with apples. It was very tasty and savory. But again, it turned out that if in winter a jar of strawberry or cherry, and even more so apricot jam appeared on the table, then no one touched quince jam.

Quince does not propagate by layering

In the garden, the quince grew rapidly, the bushes spread out to the sides for more than a meter. Attempts to dig up layers were not successful. Their roots went deep and were very strong. To dig a bush, it was necessary to spend a lot of time and effort.
There was also another problem. The bushes were overgrown with wheatgrass weed. He quickly drowned out and suppressed quince. Among the thick thorny branches of quince, it was not possible to completely weed the couch grass. And the bed took on a nondescript look, bloomed weakly. Of course, we always collected a bucket of small unripe fruits, but even this small crop was gathering dust in the closet and rarely went to the table and to blanks.

I found the original use for quince. It produces a lot of seeds with excellent germination. Seeds were stored in moist peat in a refrigerator, sown in spring in a good bed without weeds, and by autumn many hundreds of seedlings of a fashionable rare plant were obtained. They were bought from me not as a fruit, but as an ornamental beautifully flowering plant. And it was true. I always reminded that quince is afraid of both deepening the root collar and exposing the roots, does not like several transplants, so it must be planted from a seed stock with a large clod of earth immediately to a permanent place where it can grow fifty years.

Japanese quince freezes above the snow, unpretentious below the snow

In quince, we have identified another drawback. Flower buds above the snow level, even in winters with frosts of 20 degrees, perished. Only branches covered with snow bloomed and had bright foliage with good growth. But in our zone, although winters are frosty, but snowy, this problem is easily solved.
In front of my house there is a beautiful well-kept lawn, behind it is a fence entwined with girlish grapes, bushes of high barberry with red leaves are planted in front of it, and quince bushes spread under the barberry. They have been growing for 20 years already. And since we take good care of this fence, we cut all the plants, the quince that blooms in spring and bears fruit in autumn perfectly decorates our house.

Given some of the shortcomings of this plant, which came to us from Japan, it still has advantages. Very unpretentious, tolerant of any soil, grows for a long time, loves the sun, but also withstands shade, easily and quickly propagated by seeds and layering, and, most importantly, blooms profusely and annually. At the same time, it blooms for an unusually long time, from the beginning to the end of May, when there are still no leaves on the branches, so it is better to use it for single, border plantings and in the foreground for compaction in hedges.
Its fruits should also decorate and bring variety to our table, accustom children to new tastes. If guests who are not familiar with gardening put a slice of quince in tea or put jam in a vase and tell stories about this vitamin plant from Japan, then you will hear delight and smiles, and guests will remember the evening spent in your family for a long time.
We sometimes dry red quince flower petals, they can decorate fine vintage teas.

Decorative grafts on the trunk

I am fond of vaccinations on the trunk. Near my house there are always roses on a trunk, giving up to a hundred blooming buds, in the garden there are a lot of pears on a hawthorn. I have tried many methods of grafting chaenomeles on boles of mountain ash, hawthorn, wild pear, shadberry and cotoneaster. They do not look good on thick, rough boles of pear and mountain ash, but on a 60-80 cm trunk of brilliant cotoneaster and shankberry chaenomeles decorates the garden very well in May. Cotoneaster and shadberry cuttings are very easy to find and grow in the garden. A sprig of quince that has overwintered under the snow easily sticks to these plants when grafted in April. Chaenomeles on the trunk is easily formed by pruning, and without pruning it gives beautiful hanging shoots, which subsequently branch well themselves. The stock of shadberry and cotoneaster easily bends, and the graft for the winter goes under the snow.
I also had multi-varietal vaccinations on a seedling of a local wild pear, when at the end of April a branch of a pear blossomed, then a branch of a beautifully flowering hawthorn, then a branch of shadberry, and then the roses of several branches of chaenomeles blazed with a bright flame. And in the fall, friends tasted hawthorn berries, shadberry, small tart pear and sour quince from a wild game of a regrafted pear, and they said, if not tasty, but very beautiful. There is a lot of room for creativity with these plants.
But it is especially beautiful when, next to the blooming chaenomeles on the trunk, there are beautiful compositions of almonds blooming on the staff of blackthorn against the background of bushes of various spireas and forsythia. I remind you that all this is in the cold Northwest, where almonds and forsythia freeze without shelter.

Quince is afraid of wheatgrass

Since I always had seedlings of quince grown from seeds, I have repeatedly made attempts to plant them in the garden to increase the biodiversity of plants with abundant flowering and attracting insects. But if hawthorn, bird cherry and irga made their way through any grass without any care and grew into 1.5-2 meter trees, forming an undergrowth, then quince required care, weeding, feeding and watering. In places where I forgot about it, it was clogged with grass, did not bloom, but simply existed in the form of dwarf bushes with a powerful root, forming an indestructible turf. A tender Japanese woman cannot take root in our landscape gardens on a par with local birches and mountain ash, her place is only near the house on well-groomed lawns.

With good care, organic mulching and spraying, the quince did not hurt me and was not damaged by pests. In the shade of the grass, it is often affected by brown spots, but the following spring, with the care of the gardener, the diseases recede.

So, Japanese quince - a magnificent fruit shrub that gives environmentally friendly vitamin fruits, should be in every garden, 2-3 bushes are enough for cross-pollination.

The best chaenomeles jam

Only in September, our Japanese quince turned yellow, we harvested the first crop of sour quince growing in the Garden of Eden. Schoolchildren began to search the Internet for the best recipes for the most fragrant and original quince jams. My grandmother and I, as always, cooked three options we liked and next Saturday invited our grandchildren to a tasting. This recipe won the most votes.

Recipe for jam in a slow cooker-pressure cooker from genomeles with nutmeg pumpkin, cranberries, ginger and walnuts in red currant juice.

• 1 kg Japanese quince
• 1 kg sugar
• 200 g pumpkin nutmeg
• 100 g cranberries
• 20 g ginger
• 20 g walnuts
• 200 ml redcurrant juice

I set the mode of frying vegetables, cook sugar syrup, adding sugar to currant juice.
I cut quince into slices with skin, but without seeds, pumpkin into cubes with skin, ginger into very thin ribbons. All together with cranberries, I immediately pour it into boiling syrup, remove the foam after boiling, add crushed nuts, close it hermetically with a lid. After 5 minutes, turn off the multicooker. The jam languishes under the lid for an hour, the pressure drops gradually. I pour into 200 ml jars and screw on the lids.
In winter, jam is unique. Yellow pumpkin cubes, transparent quince slices and small red cranberry beads float in clear juice. All this in a haze of walnut flecks. The smell and pungency of ginger is intoxicating. Sour quince pairs perfectly with sweet pumpkin, ennobled cranberries and red currants.

From such an unsightly and seemingly not too tasty fruit like quince, a fantastically tasty and interesting winter treat is obtained. In its raw form, this fruit is even dangerous to health, especially for those who suffer from stomach diseases. But, we must pay tribute, its aroma is incredibly attractive and tempting! However, delicious quince jam compensates for the shortcomings of the raw version, and even has useful properties. The finished delicacy has a pleasant sweet and sour taste (depending on the additives) and has a beautiful honey hue.

Subtleties of making jam

The technology of cooking is simple. But it is easy to spoil it if the process is disturbed; and it will turn from beautiful and appetizing into a shapeless mass or the pieces will become too hard. There are other dangers: for example, the fruit mass can become sugary during cooling. You can avoid all this in one way - strictly follow the recipe and the subtleties of all culinary moments without exception.

For cooking a winter dessert, ripe fruits are taken, as they have the most fragrant aroma and bright yellow color. It is better to put the overripe ones aside, but the green and early plucked from the tree will quickly ripen on the windowsill.

Before cooking, too hard centers with seeds are cut out of fruits. But the peel is not removed, because it contains the source of that delicious amber, which distinguishes quince. pulp on " Quince jam - the most delicious recipe»to preserve the integrity of the cut during the heat treatment process, it is chopped into not too small cubes or neat thin slices, which will be so pleasant to treat.

The delicacy is prepared in at least 2-3 approaches. That is, first the quince is boiled in ordinary water, then in syrup, and then brought to a moderate softening. Most often, in the course of bringing to readiness, periods of boiling and cooling-infusion alternate. This is what prolongs the recipe for a day, and sometimes longer. Although there are also quick recipes.

Quince can burn very quickly. Therefore, during the entire cooking period, it must be regularly stirred and cooked in thick-walled dishes. And in conclusion, citric acid is added to it, which will prevent the mass from being sugared and give it pleasant sour notes.

Compliance and implementation of all these nuances guarantees " Quince jam "the most delicious result, and the treat will become a favorite among the entire range of homemade fruit and berry preserves.

The most delicious quince jam: Classic version

The ingredients for the classic recipe for quince jam will be:

1.5 kg of fragrant yellow fruits,

2 g lemon acid

1.5 kilos of sand-sugar,

1 liter of water.

From the proposed list of products, a delicacy can be made in two ways.

From water and sand-sugar, caramelized syrup is brewed (it is necessary to check the crystallization of the drop). Quince is peeled from the cores and cut into cubes-slices. Fruit slices are laid in a quietly bubbling syrup and boiled in it for 5-6 minutes, after which they are removed from the hob. It is necessary to wait for the mass to cool completely, which will take about 2-3 hours.

The "substance" is boiled again and a lemon is added to it. Cooking takes 2-3 minutes and is quickly poured into prepared jars, which are rolled up, and for 12-15 hours " Delicious quince jam - recipe» is wrapped up for gradual cooling of blockage. Then it can be taken out to the pantry or cellar for storage. The treat according to the first method is not boiled, but at the same time it is unusually tender and soft in texture.

Another classic option involves the presence of the same products and in the same quantity as in the first recipe. Only the technology is different. The preparatory process consists in washing the fruit and cutting the fruit into quarters, while removing the hard core. Then, without peeling, the flesh is chopped into thin slices. The cutting is folded into an enameled cooking basin, filled with cold water and boiled until the pieces acquire a translucent structure. After the slices are decanted from the water and laid out on a tray or simply on the kitchen table, covered with food oilcloth, in one layer for cooling.

While the quince is cooling, the syrup is being prepared. It is made on the water in which the slices were boiled, and granulated sugar. Cooled fruits are lowered into it and boiled for up to 5 minutes. After waiting until the brew reaches room temperature, citric acid is added to it, the mass is boiled and distributed among the jars. The roll is turned over onto the lids and aged under the bedspread for a day. At first glance, both methods seem typical, but according to the second, the jam comes out with rather dense slices, reminiscent of candied fruit.

Recipe in the microwave

On the " Delicious quince jam "recipe with photo you need to prepare the following list of products:

2 kilos quince, sliced

2 g citric acid,

1 kilo of sugar

20-30 ml of water.

Cut quince is folded into a special container that can be placed in the microwave for heat treatment, with a total volume of 3 liters. Just keep in mind that the dishes are only 2/3 full. Or it is prepared in 2 calls. A filled deep bowl or pan is placed in a microwave oven, and the contents are heated for 12-15 minutes at the maximum power of the device.

After a quarter of an hour, the container is removed, and sugar is poured into the slices that have begun to secrete juice. Cooking continues at the same power for another 15 minutes. Lemon crystals are dissolved in water, added to the jam, and together it is kept for an additional 3-4 minutes of heating. The jam is laid out in a seaming container and closed, turned upside down and wrapped in a blanket or blanket for 7-8 hours. Despite the speed of preparation, the workpiece is stored for a very long time, preserving its appetizing appearance and pleasant taste.

The most delicious quince jam: Recipe with nuts and lemon

Quite successful and popular option " Delicious quince jam with lemon". The result is an excellent dessert, delicious for tea drinking, and, moreover, extremely useful during the period of colds. Ingredients of the dish:

1 kg prepared quince,

0.8 kilo of granulated sugar,

200 g crushed walnuts,

1 g vanillin,

500 ml of water.

Peeled and chopped quince should be poured with a glass of water and blanched for about 15 minutes. The peel is cut off, but not thrown away. In a separate bowl, a thick, caramelized syrup is boiled by boiling 200 ml of water and pouring a pound of sweet sand into it. The blanched pieces are poured with boiling sugar syrup and left to soak for 4 hours, covered with a cloth or gauze. Next, the remaining sugar is added, and the workpiece is placed on the stove to boil.

The ingredients are boiled for 15-20 minutes. Quince peel is boiled in 100 ml of water, after which the broth is filtered and poured into the total mass. Vanillin is also laid there. The lemon is washed, cut with the peel into thinner circles, choosing only the seeds, and loaded into the almost completed jam. Simultaneously with the lemon, crushed, pre-dried in a dry frying pan, walnut kernels are added. Nuts must be roasted, otherwise they will spoil in the finished delicacy, and may become moldy. The mass is boiled one more time, boiled for 5 minutes and packaged in jars.

Recipe with cinnamon

A method is also possible with the addition of ground cinnamon to give a fragrant aroma. The treat turns out to be very rich in taste, with a light, barely perceptible sourness, and very thick. For the technology How to cook delicious quince jam" necessary:

500 g quince,

5 g ground cinnamon,

50 ml freshly squeezed lemon juice

300 g of granulated sugar,

Glass of water.

The fruits are washed, cut and cleaned from hard cores. Then they are cut into neat slices rather thinly, which are placed in an enamel pan and filled with water. The liquid should completely cover the cut and even be 1-2 cm higher in level. Boil for 20 minutes over moderate heat, stirring constantly. The rest of the ingredients according to the recipe are added to the brew and boiled for another half an hour. Sterilized jars are filled with hot jam and rolled up.

Recipe with apples

The neighborhood of apples and quince gives an incredible bouquet: fragrant, tasty, harmonious. For such an amazing viscous, thick delicacy you will need:

1 kilogram of yellow fruits,

0.5 kg of apples,

2 g lemons

1 kilo sugar.

Both varieties of fruit are washed, seeded and peeled and cut into cubes. The fruits are sprinkled with granulated sugar and settled overnight for juicing. The next day, the dishes are heated, and its contents are boiled for up to 5 minutes, followed by infusion for about 5 hours. The cooking-cooling procedure is repeated twice. All its subtleties can be considered in " Quince jam - the most delicious recipe "video. The final step is to add citric acid or lemon juice, and, brought to a boil, the dish is preserved in jars.

Recipe with pumpkin

With a pumpkin, the workpiece acquires a bright, orange color, becomes thicker, resembling jam or marmalade in consistency. And the taste benefits from an unusual addition. For the recipe How to make delicious quince jam and pumpkins" you need:

1 kilogram of peeled pumpkin,

500 g quince,

800 g of granulated sugar,

2 g lemon (acid).

Peeled quince and pumpkin pulp are cut into small cubes, sprinkled with sand-sugar, mixed and juice is poured abundantly during the day. Then the container with the pumpkin is placed on the stove for heating on the slowest fire and boiled for 35 minutes from the moment of boiling. The brew needs to be stirred, not allowing it to burn. Lemon is added, followed by boiling for up to 5 minutes. The delicacy is distributed in jars calcined for a couple, closed and cooled in an inverted position. It is desirable that the cooling proceed gradually; for this purpose, the container is covered with something warm (a blanket, a blanket, a towel, etc.).

Quince jam - the most delicious recipe-photo

5 ml lemon juice

200 ml of water

500 g of granulated sugar.

Yellow fruits must be washed, peeled, cut off the peel and removed the cores, and finely chopped flesh. Then the quince is poured with water and, with a gentle boil, is kept on the hob for about 15 minutes. After that, lemon zest, grated ginger and sugar sand are added to it, and cooking continues for another 30 minutes. At the end, lemon juice is poured in and, boil the ingredients for 5 minutes, they are packaged in glass containers. Like all previous recipes, this one is turned over on lids, insulated with a blanket and after 12 hours it is stored for storage until winter.

The ginger option is good not only as a cold remedy. It also has an amazing aroma and specific taste. Its feature to protect the body from colds and increase immunity will increase if you do " Japanese quince jam - the most delicious recipe”, which, unlike the usual garden variety, is extremely useful, albeit small in size.

In winter, it's so great to get some delicious sweet preparation to remember the warm gentle sun and enjoy the aroma of summer berries and fruits. Most often, we prepare preserves and jams, compotes from strawberries, cherries, raspberries, forgetting about other tasty and healthy gifts of summer.

One of such wonderful gifts of nature is quince, which is not eaten fresh, but it turns out to be unusually tasty, beautiful and healthy in jam.

The value of quince for health is very large. It contains pectins in large quantities, which are very necessary for the normal functioning of the digestive system, and quince also improves blood, has antibacterial and antiseptic effects. It is used as a diuretic and choleretic agent. Quince is great not only in sweet preparations, it is also used in the preparation of meat dishes.

There is another sunny fruit that matches the quince - a pumpkin. It is no less useful for the human body, has a lot of important vitamins and elements, contributes to the normal functioning of digestion, has a mild laxative effect, is used for anemia, improves memory, and normalizes sleep.

By combining these two wonderful products - pumpkin and quince, you can cook a surprisingly fragrant, tasty and very healthy jam. It is prepared quickly and simply, it turns out very beautiful.

Quince and pumpkin jam

Grocery set:

• kilogram of quince;
• half a kilogram of granulated sugar;
• half a kilo of pumpkin.

How to cook quince-pumpkin jam?

1. First of all, let's deal with quince. The skin of the fruits of this tree is slightly sticky, fleecy, so it must be washed very well in cold water, cleaned of lint. The washed fruits should be divided into four parts, cut out the core from each, after which the pieces should be cut into thin slices.
2. Now it's pumpkin's turn. It also needs to be washed, cut into small pieces against the fibers.
3. Put the quince and pumpkin pieces into a deep bowl or pan, mix them well and cover with sugar on top. Leave the mixture in this form until a sufficient amount of juice stands out. This will take approximately an hour or two.
4. Next, the container must be placed on a strong flame, bring the mixture to a boil. Immediately after boiling, reduce the flame, cook the quince and pumpkin for another 30 minutes, so that the jam thickens slightly.
5. The finished jam should be cooled, put in sterile jars and rolled up.