Macoun Apples

Hands down, my favorite apples are the Macouns from the local orchard. I can’t even tell you whether they are available at my local supermarket because I make the trip to stock up on pounds of them at the local orchard every fall. I’ll never forget how excited I was to find these apples during my first year in Texas because the local orchard “exported” their Macouns via the Whole Foods Market’s EcoApple program. I must have bought two or three white paper bags of Macouns in one trip, and shared them with the office that I was working in at the time. One of the guys in the office agreed that these were the best apples that he had ever tasted. Unfortunately, I never saw them “exported” again – and I checked that market every fall!

This year, I went to the local orchard in early fall and bought a ten pound bag of Macouns to share with my parents. We split the bag roughly in half, which left me with about four pounds of Macoun apples to enjoy. Later in the fall, I went back to the local orchard and bought a second ten pound bag of Macouns, which I also shared with my parents.

What is a Macoun?

According to the Connecticut Apple Marketing Board, the Macoun apple was developed in 1909 by crossing the McIntosh apple, which is the quintessential New England apple, with the Jersey Black apple, which is an heirloom North American apple variety. Another source dates its commercial introduction to 1923, but that still makes it a fairly old apple variety. I like them because, even though they are tart apples, they are sweeter than the ubiquitous McIntosh apples. And they are smaller apples, so it is easy to eat an entire apple in one sitting – with or without peanut butter!




Macoun Apple Salad

One of the first things I did after acquiring my Macouns was to look for interesting - and easy - recipes to use them in. The Apple Salad recipe on the Connecticut Apple Marketing Board website caught my attention because it not only was very straightforward, but it also had a number of my favorite ingredients. And it seemed to fit well in with my nutrition plan.

I basically followed the apple salad recipe as written, with the conscious decision to omit the chopped celery stalk because I am not really fond of celery. I started with one cup of walnuts and then chopped them, rather than measure one cup of chopped walnuts. There is actually a difference – measuring the walnuts after they are chopped typically contains more chopped walnuts (and less air space) than measuring the walnuts before they are chopped. Once the walnuts were chopped, I poured them into a large salad bowl and added in the crumbled blue cheese and the remainder of a package of dried cranberries (probably closer to ½ cup). I mixed that all together, and then added a healthy handful of fresh baby spinach, which was probably close to the required two cups. I made an absolute mess trying to toss the baby spinach with the walnut mixture! But I got it roughly done before I started chopping the apples. I added the diced apples one at a time, tossing after each addition, and decided that four apples was enough to make a hearty apple salad. Rather than dirty a separate bowl by whisking the vinaigrette ingredients together, I simply drizzled the walnut oil and apple cider vinegar on top of the finished apple salad and tossed well to coat.

The Macoun apple salad was really good! I ate an entire small soup bowl of it as soon as it was finished. The combination of the walnuts, cranberries, and blue cheese with the apples was really satisfying. I ate it with lunch and dinner pretty much every day for an entire week, and was sad to see the last of it finished.











Macoun Applesauce

The remainder of the first bag of apples languished in my refrigerator for almost a month before I augmented them with the second bag of apples. Even then, it took me almost another two weeks to motivate to make applesauce. In my mind, applesauce required a lot of tedious work: quartering the apples, coring the apples, peeling the apples, grating the apples, cooking down the apples. I just wasn’t up to it. So the Macouns sat in my refrigerator until one Friday night I had a spurt of energy. It took me three phases, but I was able to get 16 apples grated into my crockpot before I ran out of steam. (The last six apples went back into the refrigerator for a later use.) I added a few splashes of apple cider to the crockpot, set the timer for three hours, and went about reading an advanced reader copy that I had been avoiding. After three hours and a few stirs, the applesauce was a lovely golden mush that smelled heavenly.

Although I waited until the next morning to try it, the applesauce tasted wonderful! I couldn’t tell that I had forgotten the cinnamon and the clove because the apples themselves had so much flavor to them. And it was sweet enough without having to have added any additional sugar. I was very pleased with the results of my efforts.











Crepes with Macoun Apple Filling

After making the applesauce, I quickly decided that I needed to use up at least three of the remaining six apples by having a crepe with Macoun apple filling for breakfast. It had been quite a while since I had made crepes, but I used to make them all the time (breakfast, lunch, and dinner) for my roommate Kate and me when I was a foreign exchange student in Warsaw in 1993. So I figured that making a crepe was like riding a bicycle – if I looked at the recipe, it would come back to me! Sure enough, I was right. Making the batter was straightforward: stir together milk, flour, one egg, and then add some melted butter. Once the batter was complete, I let it rest while I quartered, cored, peeled, and sliced the three apples, which was such tedious work that I texted half my address book for entertainment while working on it. Of course, I failed to look at the recipe for the apple filling, so I went off script while making it. I started by melting approximately two tablespoons of butter in a medium skillet, and then tossed the apples with the butter. Once the apples were coated with the hot butter, I dusted the surface with cinnamon and anisette sugar (for a little extra flavor) and then stirred all that together in the skillet until the apples were soft. I removed the skillet from the heat when the apples were soft, and quickly put a smaller skillet on the same heat. I sprayed the small skillet with baking spray (which was probably a mistake) and then poured a puddle of the crepe batter into the center. I swirled the crepe batter to cover the entire bottom of the skillet and set it on the heat while I dashed over to my computer to check my recipe. At that point, I discovered that I should have probably used butter on the skillet and that I should have poured out some excess batter to make a thinner crepe. But I couldn’t correct those mistakes! The next step was to wait until the edges dried and pulled slightly away from the skillet; once that happened, I flipped the crepe even though it was still wet in the center. I let the second side of the crepe cook for a minute or two and flipped it again just to ensure that it had cooked, then I slid it onto a plate to fill with the sautéed apples.

Despite the fact that the crepe was a little on the thick side, I really enjoyed my Macoun apple crepe. The apples were done perfectly. The anisette sugar was a good choice as it gave the apples a little extra special taste. Although I used all of the apple filling in my breakfast crepe, I have a lot of crepe batter leftover so I can experiment with cheddar cheese crepes and jam crepes for breakfast for the rest of the week.






The Remaining Three Apples

I actually don’t have a plan for the remaining three Macouns in my refrigerator, but I can’t imagine that they will last very long. My nutritionist has advocated apples and cheese as a healthy breakfast, and apples and peanut butter as a healthy mid-afternoon snack. Then again, three apples seems to be just enough to make a filling for another apple crepe, if I’m willing to put the work into quartering, coring, peeling, and slicing them. Of course, the Macouns are so good that I may just eat these last three plain!

The Recipes

Applesauce
Mom adds 1 tbsp lemon juice and some sugar, then slow cooks it in a crockpot for hours.

Apples (Cortland and Macoun are best)
Ground or Stick Cinnamon
Ground Clove (optional)
Water
Cranberry juice (optional)

1. Peel and core apples. Cut into quarters lengthwise. Shred like cheese for pizza, or coarsely chop with knife or food processor.
2. Pour apples into a pot. Apples should not fill it more than ¾ full.
3. Add enough water (or cranberry juice) to coat the bottom of the pot.
4. Dust the surface of the apples with cinnamon, or add in one or two whole cinnamon sticks (remember to remove these later). Add one or two shakes of clove if desired.
5. Cook covered over low heat, stirring and scraping bottom and sides frequently.
6. Applesauce will take at least an hour to become mushy, but still slightly chunky.

♥ I use ½ peck apples (one white paper bag) and work about 5 at a time. I start the pot with 5 grated apples, and then let those simmer until I have more cored and peeled to grate into the pot. Using this method, the applesauce is ready when there is not much “white” shredded apple left.

Basic Crepes
Kate, my American roommate in Warsaw in 1993, was a very fussy eater. Neither of us knew enough Polish to negotiate the Communist-style corner market or had enough money to constantly eat out at the corner cafe. We were saved by a Richard Scarry picture book (in Czech, German, French and English), a stack of index card with recipes from home, and a whole lot of ingenuity.

1 cup flour (mąka)
1 cup milk (mleko)
1 egg, slightly beaten (jajko)
1 tbsp butter (masło)

1. In medium bowl, mix flour and milk. Stir in egg
2. In small skillet, melt butter. Drain butter into crepe batter and mix well.
3. Over medium heat, pour enough crepe batter into center of skillet to cover ¾ of skillet. Pick skillet up, swirl batter to cover bottom of skillet completely, and pour excess batter back into bowl. Replace skillet on heat.
4. When edges begin to pull away from skillet (1-2 minutes), flip crepe.
5. Cook additional 30-60 seconds.
6. Flip out onto plate, fill and roll.

Apple Topping
This was my roommate Kate’s favorite in Warsaw – we at least knew how to get jabłko, masło and cukier from the corner market. (We never learned cinnamon, and skipped it!)

Apples
Cinnamon
White Sugar
1-2 tbsp butter

1. Peel and core apples. Slice lengthwise into quarters and widthwise in half. Thinly slice each piece into a medium bowl.
2. Add cinnamon and sugar to taste. Stir apples roughly so the juices form a thick sauce with the cinnamon and sugar. Taste and adjust cinnamon and sugar often.
3. Choose skillet almost large enough to spread apple mixture in single layer on bottom. Melt enough butter over medium heat to cover half skillet.
4. Pour apples into butter. Cook and stir over medium heat until sauce thickens to syrup and begins to carmelize. Apples should be soft and easily cut with spoon. If not, add a little water or apple juice to dilute sauce and give apples more cooking time.