Without doubt, My favourite day of the week is definitly Wednesday. I cant wait to get home, snuggle up in front of the warm fire with a big bowl of winter comfort and watch my idol, Maggie Beer. She makes THE best comfort food I have ever seen, usually simmered in a pool of butter, baked in a tin lined with butter and garnished with hmmm butter. Her creations are not intirely a good influence, but I could watch that jolly little country nanna every night. But what has struck me recently is her love of Quince. A strange variety of fruit which is rarely seen or used in peoples kitchens. This winter, ive decided to give them a go for the first time. Ive pot roasted them and oven baked them in a coating of caramelised sugar and vanilla on several cold wintery nights until they turned a deep ruby red and then served them up with the creamiest vanilla icecream. And shes right, they really are a winter delight.
The other morning i was searching through her website and I came across this recipe for a dark chocolate, roasted almond and Quince paste slab. It is really a surprising combination. Sure, i would mix together nuts and chocolate, maybe a few marshmallows (I am a major rocky road fan) but Quince paste? I had to give it a go.
When mentioning it to fellow work collegues, one came up with the obvious but I think very bright idea that it could perhaps be similar to turkish delight. Seeing as im also a major turkish delight fan (infact i think im a fan of anything that contains chocolate and isnt good for you) I had to make this straight away.
I bought Maggie Beers signature Quince paste (never settle for any other, hers is by far the best, I love you mag-mag), a block of 70% Lindt chocolate (although next time i might go a shade lighter!) and some fresh roasted almonds. Once I set off to begin, I took one look at the quantities and realised I had no where near enough chocolate ( Lindt is only a 100g block) so I pretty much quarted the amounts and only made a small slab. So of coarse mine turned out alot thinner as it just spread out across the tray rather than filling it but it was still really nice. Its kind of like nut and raisens in chocolate done as a slab, basically! But not quiet raisens, more like rasins that arent hard, just soft and nice. Let me try again, its like dark chocolate with almonds but then real sweet little surprise bits in it! As you can see its very difficult to explain, I suggest you give it a whirl yourself. (it'd be great for when a rich guest over the age of 60 pops in for a cuppa, drop in a few lines like yes, its the finest lindt chocolate, I only ever eat 70% anything less is purely dogs droppings, ahh yes and those mooorish little fruity parcels, that is maggie beers gourmet quince paste my dear, just glorious really, excuse me while I take these gigantic diamonds out of my ears, they are just so solid and heavy not to mention this 1kg solid gold necklace ohh dear i should of settled for the deep ocean pearls this evening, not to worry ill let charles know and he can pop down tomorrow evening in the merc and purchase some...)
Ingredients:
400g Dark Chocolate
200g Roasted Almonds
100g Quince paste
Method:
Melt the chocolate in a bowl covered with cling wrap (so the chocolate doesnt sieze) over a saucepan of boiling water. When done, stir in a heap of almonds and lightly fold in some chopped up quince paste. Set in a paper lined tray, not in the refridgerator. Break up or cut into irregular shapes and serve.
