Alright, today we’re doing a very common Quesadilla and we’ve all made Quesadillas but we’re going to use some very unusual and interesting ingredients.
The first one would be Manchego Cheese. This is sheep’s milk cheese. It’s Spain’s most famous cheese, incredibly delicious in fact. You must read the blog today, lots of interesting facts and figures on all those stuff.
And so, real simple dish here. I got some shredded Manchego Cheese. I just grated that. I have your basic flour tortilla, no explanation needed. And the other exotic ingredient is this Quince Paste, also called Membrillo in Spain. I’m using the brand Corazon Del Sol which I will translate now as Corazon of the Soul for you non-Spanish speakers.
Now, see that brick red? It’s kind of like a really, really firm fruit paste. It comes from this, a Quince. Who would’ve thought of it? This apple-looking thing is way too hard and sour to eat raw. But if you cook it down, it turns into this brick red paste which they add sugar to. This is what’s produced and that’s called Membrillo. So it’s very odd to have a yellow white fruit turn into this final product, but extremely delicious and you're going to have to trust me on this. You’ll find this. You’re going to read about this on the site like I said. But what we’re going to do is we’re going to just kind of dice up in little chunks. It’s very sticky but it will slice into whatever shape you want. In fact, if you’re not going to make Quesadillas and you just want to do a cheese platter, you can just cut chunks of your Manchego Cheese and just put these little slices of Membrillo on top and some toothpicks and you got a really nice little appetizer.
So anyway, in our pan, we’re going to put a teaspoon of Spanish olive oil. Let’s keep the whole Spanish theme going. We’re going to put one of our flour tortillas down, make sure the oil coats the whole bottom. Now, I’m working with low to medium heat. I don’t want my tortilla to burn before all the cheese melts. So I’m going to sprinkle a few ounces of the grated Manchego Cheese. Again, it’s a sheep’s milk cheese, kind of tangy, a little bit salty. We’re going to let that melt for a few minutes. See that? It’s kind of halfway melted. And then we’re going to add some—the chefs call them jewels because they look like little rubies, but we’re going to add these little pieces, these little jewels of the Quince Paste or the Membrillo. I just like saying Membrillo. It’s fun, Membrillo.
Alright, so put the Membrillo. Now, how much do you put? I don’t know. How much jelly do you put on your peanut butter and jelly sandwiches? This is up to you. I’m going to put this much. So for me, every couple of inches I had a piece Membrillo. Now you notice I just put it on half because we’re going to just kind of fold it over like an omelette. We’re going to pat it down. I’m going to turn my heat down to low because I like my Quesadillas to have kind of a crispy crust. So on low, I just crisp it up a little bit, tap, tap. Now we’re ready to slice and serve.
I’m not sure I’ll film this because you probably could figure out how to slice a Quesadilla. I’m going to cut mine four, so I’m going to go on half and then half again, make this beautiful pointy wedges. People do enjoy pointy food. And this is okay at room temperature. It’s not great. I suggest serving it warm and you can see the little jewels of the Membrillo in there. I’m going to serve it with a little mixed green with some Spanish sherry vinaigrette, which I will also demo. That is just a delicious lunch or even breakfast or brunch idea. So delicious. Why, because of the contrast. You have kind of slightly crispy flour tortilla. You have the tangy, sharp—well, not sharp but slightly sharp and salty cheese counterbalance with that sweet, delicious, complex, unusual Membrillo Quince Paste flavor. It is really hard to describe, but you got to go try it.
Now, you can find that in any cheese shop that sells Manchego and every good cheese shop will always, always have Membrillo. You can find it, you can do it. Read the website for all the details, and enjoy.
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