Pumpkin and quince stew

Last month I had friends over for dinner and now I'll finally share a delicious recipe with you that I prepared that day. It's a sweet dish with pumpkin and quince that accompanies a couscous, in stead of oignons confits for instance. The recipe comes from Claudia Roden's 'The book of Jewish food' and she calls it 'Hlou aux coings et potiron'. I love quince almost as much as pumpkin, so I really wanted to try this combination.


Serves 4-5

2-3 tbsp sunflower oil
100 g sugar
1 big onion, chopped
250 g pumpkin, peeled and chopped
2 quince, peeled and chopped
juice of 1/2 lemon

Heat oil with sugar until sugar starts to caramelize and get brown.
Add onion and fry for 5 min.
Add pumpkin and quince and lemon juice, add water until everything is just covered.
Let the dish simmer for 45 min.
The mixture should be thick, like a jam.
Serve hot or cold with couscous.

The taste was fantastic and the dish was a great success with my guests.

I prepared the couscous according to Claudia Roden's basic recipe, which I won't copy here.

Beef stew with quince

Another Claudia Roden recipe called khoreshte beh, which stems from Persia.


Serves 6

2 big onions, chopped
3 tbsp sunflower oil
1 kg beef shoulder (or other meat for stew), in 2,5 cm cubes
1,5 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1oo g yellow split peas, soaked for 1 hr
2 big quince, washed, without core and cut in big slices (with or without skin)
4 tbsp lemon juice
1-2 tbsp sugar

Fry onions in a big pan until soft. Add the meat and fry until it's brown. Add just enough hot water to cover the meat, add spices, pepper & salt, and let simmer for 1 hour.
Add split peas and quince and if necessary more water. Let it simmer for another 30 min, until split peas and quince are cooked. Add lemon juice and sugar 15 min before the end of cooking time.

Notes
You can also use lamb or veal.
I couldn't find the split peas so I used red lentils.
Next time I will fry onions and meat separately, in order to be able to really seal the meat on high heat.
Taste the dish and add more sugar or lemon juice if necessary

Quinces in wine - cotognata

A few days ago I couldn't resist buying quince (kweeperen, coings, marmelos....). I love this fruit, the smell and flavour are almost like perfume. I meant to prepare a chicken stew with them, but as I already used chicken for the broth, I decided to prepare the quince separately as a dessert.
The recipe by Claudia Roden has already been posted by labelga.


I used red wine, about 200 ml, a cinnamon stick in stead of powder and only 6-7 cloves.
I added a lot of water and also some lemon juice.
When the fruit was cooked, I took it out and left the liquid to cook for another 15 min. It didn't get very sirupy in that time but I like it this way.