Cotignac*

Categories:	14th Century   fruit   French   quince
Original Source:	Le Ménagier de Paris
Secondary Source:
Cook:	unknown
Meeting Date:	0000-00-00

Prenez des coings et les pelez, puis fendez par quartiers, et ostez l'ueil et les pepins, puis les cuisiez en bon vin rouge et puis soient coules parmi une estamine: puis prenez du miel et le faites longuement boulir et escumer, et apres meytez vos coings dedans et remuez tres bien, et le faites tant boulir que le miel se reviengne a moins la moitie; puis gettez dedans pouldre d'ypocras, et remuez tant qu'il soit tout froid, puis taillez par morceaulx et les garder.
...Pour faire pouldre d'ypocras, prenez un quarteron de tres fine canelle triee a la dent, et demy quarteron de fleur de canelle fine, une once de gingembre de mesche trie fin blanc et une once de graine de paradis un sizain de noix muguettes et de garingal ensemble, et faites tout battre ensemble.

Take quinces, peel then, then cut into quarters, and take out the eye and the seeds, then cook them in good red wine and press them through a fine strainer: then take honey and boil and skim it a long time, then put in your quinces and mix very well, and let it boil until the honey is re­duced by half; then throw in hippocras powder and mix until it is all cold, then cut into pieces and store them.
...To make hippocras powder, take a quarter (of a pound) of very fine cinnamon tested by biting it, and a half quarter of fine cinnamon powder, an ounce of fine white tested dry ginger and an ounce of grain of paradise, a sixth of nutmeg and galingale together, and beat it all together.

Steps

1. Peel, core and chop quinces finely (quarters take too long to cook), bring to a boil. Cook them with the wine on a low heat until the fruit is soft. Stir to keep from sticking and burning. Mash well ­and rub though a wire strainer. This will leave a lot of unstrained material behind, and you should have about 1 1/2 cups of thick paste.
2. Mix with the honey and simmer until the volume is reduced by about 3/4 cup. Add spice powder to taste--3 tsp. of the mixture gives a mild scent, and more will provide a stronger spice flavour. Turn the mixture into a lightly oiled loaf pan about 8"x4". Allow to set and slice as desired. Wrap in plastic wrap to store and keep from drying out.

Note

A good wine to use is a pinot noir from Rumania. This wine can be considered as representative of what would have been called good wine, and the Rumanian varieties are much less expensive than French. Domestic wine should not be used.

As noted above, straining the quinces will leave behind a lot of resi­due. This can be converted into an excellent quince marmalade by adding 1/2 cup wine and 1/4 cup sugar to the strainings, and boil down to a thick consistency. Add lemon juice and spice as desired to taste.

The exact composition of the spice powder is merely one example that the Menagier specified. He also comments that "nutmegs, mace and galingale make the head to ache." He follows the above version for hippocras powder with another having mace, cloves, nutmeg, galingale and spikenard as minor components and cinnamon and ginger again as the predominant ingredients. A slightly higher proportion of mace and nutmeg relative to the other in­gredients is an improvement in the taste of the spiced quince jelly, and is quite permissible as it is clearly a matter of personal preference.
To convert leftover spice powder to hippocras, mix 3 tsp. spice powder with 1 cup sugar and add to a quart of wine. Heat to dissolve sugar and blend flavours and serve chilled. The spice may be strained or decanted as desired.