Medlar Jelly

Just been making medlar jelly, having cooked, strained and filtered all my fruit in several batches. The fruit was well bletted, so I doubt that there was enough pectin left in the fruit to make a good set, so resorted to using a little pectin just to make sure. If making a butter (just pushed through a sieve, rather than a jelly bag, probably no need to add any pectin, as the thickness of the fruit pulp gives enough body to the paste

Medlars (as many as you have as they don't make a great quantity of jelly)
Stick of cinnamon (if liked)
small orange
2 lemons
pectin
Sugar

Add boiling water to medlars, just enough to cover them. Add a small orange, cut into halves or quarters and a stick of cinnamon. Bring to boil, then turn down the heat and cook for another 40 minutes.
Strain the pulp through a coarse sieve into another pan. You can boil up the remaining coarse pulp again if required, especially if you don't have a great quantity of fruit. Take the strained pulp and strain again using a jelly bag, leaving it overnight.

Measure the filtered liquor and add 700g sugar per litre. Squeeze the two lemons, and strain the juice through a tea strainer. Add pectin and bring to a boil (we used one sachet to 2 litres of liquour). When you think it has reduced enough, test it by cooling a drop of jelly on a saucer. When the cooled jelly starts to develop a skin, it is nearly ready, but leave a little bit longer to achieve a good set. (Alternatively, use a jam thermometer to the setting indicated on the scale if not familiar with jam making).

At the same time sterilise jars and lids in the oven until hot. Ladle jelly into jars, taking care to avoid any scum that inevitably forms during boiling. Fill as near the top of the jar as you can, and screw lids on tightly while jelly is still hot.

The flavour is rather like quince, but more robust, with just a hint of tannin, enough to make it dual-purpose as a desert or meat accompaniment. We've found it quite hard to get completely clear jelly, even with a jelly bag some particles seem to get through.

Medlars

This is the first time we've ever just sat down and eaten medlars as desert properly. Crops up to this point have either been so small we've just jammed them before fully ripe; the last couple of years I haven't picked any due to illness, which always seems to strike this time of year. I have casually snacked on them, but usually with my mind on other things. The box of hard fruit I picked last week had all 'bletted' in that time, and were completely soft and brown.

They really do taste very good. I know that they really defy description, but the nearest thing in flavour and texture is a fresh date (the very soft Iranian kind, rather than the dried variety, which are much sweeter). We eat them with Bamm dates and Brown Turkey figs, and the flavours went very well together. They have a taste of their own, with a slightly winey quality. They are slightly annoying to eat, they cant really be picked apart with cutlery, so the soft contents have to be sucked out, along with the 3-4 enormous stones.

I don't know what the size of crop was in weight, but it filled two fruit boxes.

The variety I grow is Nottingham; which isn't credited with having a good flavour in many books, but looking at the descriptions of the few available varieties at Keepers Nursery, Hamid Habibi considers it to have a good flavour, though prone to cracking (which I've never had a problem with); I would agree that they have a very short shelf-life once they begin to ripen, but then there's probably a limit to how many you want to eat fresh once the novelty has worn off. They do however make a very nice fruit butter (esp. with a little added cinnamon) and a good base jam for adding to deserts like pear frangipane or Bakewell tarts. I recently came across a recipe for medlar tarte, made with butter and egg yolks added to Medlar butter.

The only other thing is that the foliage of Nottingham is rather small and narrow, so the trees lack the grandeur of the Dutch kind, which have large leaves and a nice habit. Still a very attractive small tree, with excellent buttery autumn foliage colour which lasts longer than most.

Medlars

Medlar tree has gone butter yellow and looks lovely. Medlars still firmly attached and hard, will leave them a while longer before turning into jelly.

Medlar wine

I've been meaning to try this for a few years but have never quite gotten round to it. The recipe is loosely based on my quince wine recipe, but with additional spices and some dried fruit to give it body, should the medlar flavour not quite be as mellow as expected.

2 kg (4.5 lb) medlars

enough boiling water to cover

100g sultanas

half orange, including peel

A generous knob of root ginger (2" approx)

half a stick of cinnamon

600g (1.5 lb) caster sugar

250 g (.5lb) muscovado sugar

Desert wine yeast (I'm trying sherry)

2 tsps of pectolase

1. Pick over medlars discarding any loose matter around calyx.

2. Place fruit and spice in stainless steel pan and cover with enough boiling water to cover fruit. Bring to boil and then remove from heat. Leave fruit infusion to steep for a few hours.

3. Strain off liquid through a coarse sieve into another steel vessel. Add sugar and bring to boil. Leave to cool, until luke-warm.

4. Pour more boiling water over the fruit in the first pan, and bring to the boil again. This will be used to top up the volume in the demi-john as required.

5. Make up some sterilising fluid using campden tablets, and rinse a clean demi-john, bung, funnel, fine sieve and airlock in preparation for the cooled medlar infusion.

6. Pour infusion/sugar syrup mixture into the sterilised demi-john, using a finer sieve inside a large funnel to catch any smaller bits of fruit. Remove sieve, leaving funnel. Open yeast sachet and sprinkle about half into bottom of funnel, then do the same with pectolase. Then flush the powder through as you top up the demi-john to just over 3/4 full using spare medlar infusion (or orange juice if preferred). Swirl around a couple of times to make sure the yeast/pectolase is well mixed.

7. Rinse airlock/bung in campden solution again (I like to use campden solution in the airlock) then twist into neck of demi-john as firmly as you can.

8. Place overnight in bowl in sink, or unless you have some idea how vigorous the fermentation may be (it can vary quite a bit, but generally wines with high acid/tannin content seem to be the most likely to 'boil over').

9. Place in cool, dark place for a few weeks until fermentation has ceased, keeping airlock topped up. Once you are sure it has finished, it can be decanted into a clean demi-john and aged for a few more months before bottling.

Not sure what this will be like, having never tried it before. I used firm, un-bletted medlars as an experiment but would be better/safer to use fully-ripened ones. The infusion tasted quite light, spicy and pleasant, but with a highly tannic after taste, probably because the fruit wasn't ripe eonght. I think I'll leave the rest of the crop 'ripen' a bit more before making jelly or a further batch of wine. I'm hoping for something more akin to a sweet sherry-type wine, with a rich colour and flavour. Time will tell.

some autumn photos

Medlar: Nottingham

I have two medlar trees, both appear to be 'Nottingham', which is probably the least good cultivar in terms of fruit size, quality and value as a decorative tree. The second one was home grafted, from wood I believed to be Large Dutch (which I hoped would have more attractive foliage, as well as larger fruit). Now it has matured it's clear that the two cultivars are identical.

I never actually intended to eat the fruit fresh, and it is more than adequate for medlar cheese, so I will keep the more mature tree (and very kindly donate the other as a timely present to an unsuspecting relative). But yet again I have been sold a wrong variety from a specialist supplier that should value their reputation.