Mostarda
Mostarda looks like a preserve and tastes like something someone seasoned with mustard by mistake — which is exactly the point. It is an old northern Italian preserve, served with cheese and meat rather than bread. The whole technique rests on one thing: the mustard goes in last, into cold syrup. Heated, it loses its bite within minutes.
Your own work in that: 15 min.
- Sugaring the fruit 1440 min
- Cooking in syrup 30 min
- Resting 1440 min
- Mustard 15 min
- Jarring 15 min
Step by step
0 / 7 doneCut the fruit large and bury it in sugar
Peel the quince and apples (the pears can keep their skins), remove the cores and cut the fruit into 3 cm pieces — the hard quince a little smaller, 2 cm, so it softens with the rest. Sprinkle with lemon juice and layer with the sugar. Leave 24 hours. The sugar draws out juice by osmosis and a ready-made syrup gathers at the bottom — the fruit firms up at the same time, so it will not collapse during cooking.
Ingredients: 500 g pears · 400 g quince · 300 g apples · 800 g sugar · 1 pcs lemon
After a day a ready syrup has collected at the bottom.Drain the syrup and boil it alone
Pour off the syrup and boil it for 10 minutes, until slightly thickened. The fruit stays aside for now. Simmered from the start in thin syrup it would break up before the syrup could reduce.
Ingredients: 500 g pears · 400 g quince · 300 g apples · 800 g sugar · 1 pcs lemon
Pour the hot syrup over the fruit and rest
Pour the boiling syrup over the fruit and leave 24 hours. This is the candying method: the syrup penetrates the fruit slowly, by difference in concentration, and the pieces stay whole. Repeat once more if you want them fully translucent.
Ingredients: 500 g pears · 400 g quince · 300 g apples · 800 g sugar · 1 pcs lemon
Cook together for twenty minutes
Bring the fruit and syrup to a boil and cook 20 minutes over low heat, until the pieces are translucent at the edges but still whole. Do not stir hard — shake the pan instead, so the fruit stays intact.
Ingredients: 500 g pears · 400 g quince · 300 g apples · 800 g sugar · 1 pcs lemon
Translucent at the edges, still whole.Slake the mustard in cold water
Mix the mustard powder with cold water and the salt and leave 10 minutes. The heat of mustard only develops on contact with cold water — in hot water the enzyme is destroyed and you are left with bitter powder and no bite.
Ingredients: 3 tbsp mustard powder · 3 tbsp water · ½ tsp salt
Cold water, ten minutes — only then does the heat build.Stir the mustard into cooled syrup
Wait until the fruit and syrup have cooled below 50 °C and only then stir in the mustard. Added to boiling syrup it would lose its bite within a minute — and that bite is what separates mostarda from an ordinary preserve.
Ingredients: 3 tbsp mustard powder · 3 tbsp water · ½ tsp salt
Pot into sterilised jars
Pack the fruit into sterilised jars, cover with the syrup, seal and refrigerate for at least a week — the mustard heat needs to distribute itself evenly through the syrup and fruit.
Ingredients: 500 g pears · 400 g quince · 300 g apples · 800 g sugar · 1 pcs lemon
Before you start
What it is served with
Aged cheeses: parmesan, gorgonzola, pecorino. In Italy mostarda is a fixture alongside bollito misto, the platter of boiled meats. It is not eaten on bread, because on its own it is far too intense.
Adjusting the heat
Three tablespoons of powder gives a distinctly hot version. If you prefer it milder, start with one tablespoon, taste after a week and add more (slaked in cold water) if the heat has faded.
Three months in the fridge
Plenty of sugar and the lemon acid preserve the fruit well, but jars filled with lukewarm syrup are not pasteurised — in the cupboard mostarda could go mouldy or start to ferment. Keep it in the fridge for up to three months and use a clean spoon. Pasteurising would destroy the mustard heat, which is why it is not done here.