This recipe is from Pellegrino Artusi, the late great dean of Italian cooking.
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 20 minutes
Ingredients:
- Apples or Quinces
- Sugar
- A kitchen scale
Preparation:
There is a certain problem with the fruit involved -- though the word cotogna translates as quince according to most Italian-English dictionaries, in Tuscany, where Artusi lived much of his life, it's applied to an extremely flavorful variety of apple with wrinkled yellow skins, and also to horrid looking but very tasty clingstone peaches with wrinkled, mottled yellow skins. I have never seen quinces in Tuscany. This said, Artusi says:"Processed in the following manner, cotogne can be preserved in a liquid form that is perfect for spreading on bread.
Note the weight of the apples and slice them, discarding the tougher part around the core. Leave the skins on, and, after mashing the pulp, cover them with water, and set them to boil.
Once they're well cooked, put the apples through a food mill and return them to the fire in the water in which they boiled. Once the apple puree comes to a boil, stir in the weight of the apples in sugar. Stir frequently, and once the marmalade has thickened sufficiently (a drop placed on a plate will not run), remove them from the fire."
Artusi stops here, and I continue:
At this point you should transfer the preserves to jars. Use modern canning jars with metal lids, washing them if need be with boiling water to make sure they are sterile. Pour the hot jam into them, leaving a little bit of air space, and screw the lids on tightly. Let the jars cool on a metal rack. When they have cooled, tap the lids lightly with a spoon or knife; if they ring the seal is true. Should the lid of a jar fail to ring, either reseal it or use it (you could, for example, make a crostata). Store the canned jam in a cool dry place.
