Quince, when you can get it (I bought mine via courier, from the Pacific West coast), is a lovely delicately floral fruit, akin to apples, that needs to be cooked before using. This pie does it justice, in my opinion.
This recipe uses browned butter (cooked butter with browned solids) in the fruit-honey syrup that enriches the sliced fruit. It adds a creaminess to the texture and nuttiness to the somewhat floral-tasting fruit. Instructions for ghee appear at the bottom of the complete pie recipe. I advise making the ghee ahead of time, for convenience, but you can also make it while the fruit is simmering in the pan. Hot custard to serve with is optional. (See how to make it.)
INGREDIENTS:
2 lbs/ 3 jumbo quince, very ripe, peeled, cored and sliced like apples
3 cups water
2 star anise
½ cup honey
½ tsp fine salt
After cooking: 2 Tbs Grand Marnier, plus 1 oz unsalted ghee (or salted, if using salted butter).
2 tsp ground mace, ½ tsp whole cloves, zest of one lemon
Put the water in a large saucepan, add the honey, salt, and star anise, and stir together. Add the quince and bring to the boil. Cover pan, reduce heat to a medium simmer, and cook, turning the fruit occasionally, for about 30 minutes. Then remove lid, cooking for another half hour, letting the liquid reduce.
While the fruit is cooking, make the ghee (see below), which takes about half an hour.
Reserving the juice-syrup, drain the quince into a colander over a large bowl, and then transfer the liquid to a small saucepan. Under low heat, keep reducing until you have no more than about ¼ cup of syrup. (Should be syrupy, not too runny.) Add 2 Tbs Grand Marnier, and briefly bring to the boil to burn off the alcohol. Take off the heat, and stir in 1 oz unsalted butter. Scatter over the quince ½ tsp whole cloves, 2 tsps ground mace, and the zest of one lemon.
Spoon quince onto blind-baked crust, cover with top crust or lattice, and refrigerate. Baste the pie generously with well-beaten egg (the whole egg), and sprinkle the crust with turbinado or demerara (crunchy) sugar. Cut vents in the centre of the pie if you are using a complete crust.
Shortcrust pastry (pâte brisée, for those that like it in French) with a ‘lion’s mane’ edging.
Just-made ghee. I don’t bother to sieve with a coffee filter when making it for baking purposes, so there are tiny particles at the bottom of this ramekin.
Pre-heat oven to 425°F (plain bake mode or with convection, if you have it). Put cold-crusted pie in oven and reduce heat to 400°F, baking for 10 minutes. Then turn down to 375°F and back for a further 40 minutes, checking on crust after about 25 minutes (cover edges with tinfoil or a rim protection ring, if you have one).
When done, with juices audibly bubbling and a warm golden brown crust, allow to cool slightly on a rack, before serving with hot English custard or ice cream.
TO MAKE BROWNED BUTTER OR GHEE:
Ghee, more butter-honey-coloured, when semi-solidified at room temperature.
With the hob element set to medium-low, put the desired quantity of butter, cut into pieces, in a heavy-bottomed saucepan (helps prevent burning and keeps a more even heat). Once the butter has melted completely, turn the temperature to a low setting. As the butter starts to foam, resist the urge to stir: you want the solids to fall to the pan bottom and separate from the liquid (whey). Twenty minutes will generally suffice for ghee (you’ll hear the butter ‘snapping and popping’ in the pan as it cooks and goes from milky to golden-clear). The ghee will eventually have a golden foam and the solid bits will be brown: how dark each gets, without burning, is a matter of taste. I recommend, for this recipe, keeping the ghee fairly light in colour. (Colour is an indication of flavour not just doneness in this case.) I don’t bother with skimming-off, but just pour the ghee, including the brown bits (no need to sieve the fat for this recipe) into the quince cooking syrup. That’s why I call it ‘browned butter’ here, rather than ghee: we use it all.