I suppose you know Japanese quince! You can recognize the typical red or dark pink flowers blooming in spring, but you probably never saw the fruit. Or you noticed the yellow fruits, but thought they were useless. This is what I believed so far. I felt its wonderful smell, while I was walking near my home. The source was a bush, full of golden-yellow "apples". When I got home, I checked on Google to see if this fruit was edible. And, indeed, I find some articles that confirmed it was edible. Well, I called my friends if they had some in their garden. One of them invited me, and I took about 3-4 kilograms of Japanese quince.
Yesterday morning I worked up half of the quantity, by selecting the ripe yellow ones. After washing them carefully, cut them in halves, then quarters.
I noticed they were beautiful!
Halves of the fruit
Quarters of the fruit
I found plenty of seeds inside that I had to remove. Its ovary looks very different from the common quince's.
Then I chopped them in smaller pieces and poured water on them in a bigger pot with cinnamon and cloves. Cooked them for 15 minutes until they became soft. After filtering the juice, I put sugar in the pulp (as much as it tastes not so sour any more), and cooked more with continuous stirring. The mass became denser. Ok, ready to fill in glass jars, but I had only 3 with covers. What can I do now? Jelly!
Japanese quince jelly with almonds!
So I poured the remained mass in a baking sheet lined with baking paper, and put baked almonds on the surface. Put in the oven for half day, with 50 degrees and heat convection.
What shall I do with the juice? That's sooo sour! I poured it in a small pot, put a rosemary branch on it and added the sugar that remained. Cooked it for a while, then filled a bottle with the syrup. That tastes fantastic with soda water!
I recommend you give it a try too!
The beautiful red flowers of Japanese quince are blooming in March.
Japanese quince has healing effects!
The fruit is rich in amino acids, vitamin C and pectin content is in excess of lemon, highly nutritious and deserves to be appreciated today. Fructose, glucose and sorbitol are also significant and are not lacking in antioxidants. Scientific experiments have shown that the juice of Japanese quince is effective against bacterial diarrhea, has anti-inflammatory, analgesic and antispasmodic action, lowers blood sugar and is good news for dieters: it has a strong fat burning effect.