A Night of Garlic and Marmalade Making

As I noted last month, I made a trek to Chicago which included a stop at Serrelli's where I bought some of their garlic Italian sausage. Well, I finally cooked some up last night. Here it is fresh:



And here it is cooking in some marinara sauce:



Oh mama, was it tasty! They weren't messing around when it came to the garlic. I don't care if it doesn't lower cholesterol, the stuff was pungent and prominent and oh so good. I burped garlic for hours.

After dinner I made some quince marmalade ala the recipe in The English Housewife from 1683:

Marmalade of Quinces, red. To make red Marmalade of Quinces, take a pound of Quinces and cut them in half, and take out the cores, and pare them; then take a pound of Sugar, and a quart of fair water, and put them all into a pan, and let them boyl with a soft fire, and sometimes turn and keep them covered with a pewter dish, so that the steam or air may come a little out: the longer they are in boyling, the better colour they will have: and when they be soft take a Knife, and cut them cross upon the top, it will make the syrup go through that they may be all of the like colour: then set a little of your syrup to cool, and when it beginneth to be thick, then break your Quinces with a slice or spoon, so small as you can in the pan, and then strew a little fine Sugar in your boxes bottom, and so put it up.

My past attempts at the stuff resulted in the marmalade having a deep yellow color but, this time around, it turned out red instead.



I found out why by turning to Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking. To wit:

Colorless quince slices cooked in a sugar syrup lose their astringency and develop a ruby-like color and translucency. Quinces and certain varieties of pear are especially rich in phenolic chemicals, including aggregates (proanthocyanidins) of from 2 to 20 anthocyanin-like subunits. The aggregates are the right size to cross-link and coagulate proteins, so they feel astringent in our mouth. When these fruits are cooked for a long time, the combination of heat and acidity causes the subunits to break off one by one; and then oxygen from the air reacts with the subunits to form true anthocyanins: so the tannic, pale fruits become more gentle-tasting and anything from pale pink to deep red.

Now you know too. Since these quinces were much riper than ones I've used previously, I suspect that ripeness plays a part as well. Perhaps they contain more of those aggregates. If McGee ever returns to Madison, I'll be sure to ask him.