Today Post::Lunch salad with quince vinaigrette

A long procedure to get at one little lunch move. We had such soft temperatures this week, that I tried to make the most of the evenings on my patio. Which isn’t to say that eating elegantly was beyond me. Still, I mostly stuck to legume and salad, and longer preparations were often done the night before, as cooking the quince I used for quince vinaigrette in a lunch salad the next day.

I followed Aliza Green’s fragrant method (subtracting a lot of sugar) for poaching quince.

Part 1: Poached quince

4 quince, thoroughly scrubbed (I halved them, Aliza Green uses them whole)
2 cups water
1 cup white wine
1/2 cup granulated sugar (I used a bit less and muscovado)
1/2 cup honey (I used 2-3 tablespoons)
1 vanilla bean, split open
1 cinnamon stick
juice of 1 lemon

Combine everything in a non-reactive pot, and bring to a boil. Add the quince, bring back to a boil. Lower the heat, let simmer until the fruit is done. Let cool.

Note: Aliza Green’s idea with the sugar was to poach the quince in a syrup, to be saved for another use afterwards. I tweaked her sugar quantities.
Now onto the deft procedure at lunch time - part 2: Quince vinaigrette

By Veerle De Pooter, from De Seizoenen (No. 5, 2008)

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 shallot, minced
50 g sugar (omitted here)
2 dl sweet white wine
olive oil
balsamico vinegar
pepper, salt

Note: my procedures differ from the instructions on 2 counts. One, as I used precooked quince that had already seen sugar, no extra use of sugar here. Two, I pressed the hot mixture through a sieve.

Heat the olive oil, and fry the shallot for 2-3 minutes. Peel the quince, and remove the cores. Cut in small cubes, and add to the pan. Stew for 2 minutes.

Add the white wine, bring to a boil until nearly all wine has evaporated, remove from the heat.

Press the mixtures through a sieve, let cool a bit. Combine mixture with olive oil and balsamico vinegar (I used white wine vinegar), season.

Quite an original dressing, pares well with cheese. I had this with radicchio, parsley, soft goat cheese, a few grapes, and white beans. Needless to say precooking the quince speeds up things a lot here.