Chef John: Alright, today we are doing a very common Quesadilla, we have all made a Quesadillas, but we are going to use some very unusual and interesting ingredients. The first one would be Manchego cheese, alright, this is a sheep's milk cheese, it's Spain's most famous cheese incredibly delicious in fact must read the blog today, lots of interesting facts and figures on all those stuff. And so real simple dish here. I have got some shredded Manchego cheese, I just grated that, have your basic flour tortilla, no explanation needed and the other exotic ingredient is this Quince Paste also called Membrillo in Spain. I am using the brand Corazon Del Sol which I would translate now as Corazon of Del Sol, if you are non-Spanish speakers.
Now see that brick bread, it's kind of like really, really firm fruit paste, it comes from this, a quince, okay, this apple looking thing is way too hard and solidly raw, but if you cook it down, it turns in to this brick red paste which they add sugar to and this is what's produced and that’s called Membrillo. So it's very odd to tell a yellow white fruit would turn in to this final product, but extremely delicious and you are going to have to trust me on this, you will find this, you are going to read about this on the site like I said. What we are going to do is we are going dice it up in little chunks, it's very sticky, but it will slice into whatever shape you want, in fact if you are not going to make Quesadillas and you just might do a cheese platter, you could 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 little appetizer.
So anyway, in our pan we are going to put a teaspoon of Spanish olive oil. Lets keep the whole Spanish theme going, alright, we are going to put our flour tortillas down, make sure that the oil coats the whole bottom. Now I am working with low to medium heat, okay I don't want my tortilla to burn before all the cheese melts. So I am going to sprinkle a few ounces of the grated Manchego cheese, again it's a sheep's milk cheese, kind of tanny, little bit salty, we are going to let that melt for few minutes, see that it's kind of halfway melted and then we are going to add some; well the chefs call them jewels because they look like little rubies.
We are 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 -- now how much you put, I don't know, how much filling you put on your peanut butter jelly sandwiches, this is up to you, I am going to put this much. So for me every couple of inches I add piece of Membrillo. Now you notice, I just put it down half because we are going just kind of fold it over, like an omelet, we are going to pad it down, I am going to turn my heat down to low because I like my Quesadillas or I prefer to bake these Quesadillas to have kind of a crispy crust.
So now on low I just crisp it up a little bit, to tap cut, alright, now ready to slice and serve. And I am not sure I film this because you probably could figure out how to slice a Quesadilla, I am going to cut my end for so I am going to on half and then half again make these beautiful pointy wedges. People do enjoy pointy food I found 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 am going to serve it with little mix green with some Spanish sherry vinegar which I will also demo, that is a just a delicious lunch or even breakfast or brunch idea.
So delicious, why? Because of the contrast. You have the kind of so crispy flour tortilla, you have the tiny sharp -- not sharp but slightly sharp and salty cheese counter balance with that sweet delicious complex unusual Membrillo Quince Paste flavor, it is really hard to describe, but you got a good track. Now you can find that any cheese shop that sells Manchego and every good cheese shop will always have Membrillo, you can find it, you can do it, read the website for all the details and enjoy.
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