Posts Tagged ‘pear’

Make the most of pears

Sunday, October 26th, 2008

There are lots of ways to enjoy pears. You can use them with apple and raisins to make a delicious chutney – which is great with cheese – or poach them with cinnamon and red wine. One of my favourite pear recipes is a variation of tart tatin.

Pears produce a lot of liquid during cooking, so there are a few ways you can prevent the pastry from becoming soggy. Either drain off some of the liquid after about 15minutes of baking, or after the tart is fully cooked, and invert it onto a lipped baking sheet to collect the juice. Then pour the juice over the pears and pastry and put it back in the oven to bake for a further ten minutes or so.

Alternatively, you can avoid doing either by refrigerating the pears (once cut and cored) overnight. This will dry them out, allowing the caramel to be more intense.

Caramelised pear tatin served with lemon cream, serves 4
Tatin ingredients:

Six conference pears
300g ready made puff pastry
100g softened butter
100g caster sugar
A heavy ovenproof frying pan (no other cooking tins are needed)

Tart method

1. Peel the pears and cut into quarters. Remove the cores.
2. In a frying pan, melt the butter and sugar over a high heat until it bubbles. Shake and stir the mixture so that it caramelises. Lay the pears on top and cook in the sauce for about ten minutes until the pears soften, tossing them occasionally to ensure they’re covered in caramelised butter.
3. Remove the pan from the heat and allow to cool a little. Arrange the pears in a circle with the cut side up, ending up with one in the middle.
4. Roll out the pastry to more than cover the circumference of the pan and drape it over the edges. Tuck the edges of the pastry in and under the pears at the edge of the pan. Pierce about five or six holes in the top of the pastry.
5. Bake in a preheated oven (200C) for 15 minutes and then reduce the heat to 180C. Bake for a further ten to 15 minutes or until the pastry is golden brown.
6. Remove from the oven and let it rest for about ten or 15 minutes before inverting onto a large serving plate.


Lemon cream ingredients

40g caster sugar
125g mascarpone
150ml double cream
Four large lemons

Lemon cream method

1. Finely grate, zest and juice the lemons.
2. Mix the lemon zest with the sugar in a bowl.
3. Put the lemon juice into a small pot and bring to the boil until the liquid reduces right down to about an egg-cupful. Pour into bowl containing the zest and sugar and allow it to cool.
4. Add the mascarpone and beat.
5. In a separate bowl, whip the cream until it forms a soft peak and then add it to the mascarpone and lemon mixture. Chill in fridge for about half an hour, before serving a dollop of it on top of the tart.

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Conference pears with panache

Sunday, March 16th, 2008


When I was growing up in Cashel, our neighbours had a pear tree, some branches of which overhung our back wall.

As children we’d help ourselves to the odd pear, never waiting long enough for them to ripen. Not surprisingly, we didn’t much like the fruit as they were often hard, dry and difficult to digest. Today my home also has overhanging Conference pear branches – from the back garden of our lovely neighbour Lil.

She provides us with bags of pears each year and we use them at home for sorbet or to prepare pear puree. We also use them in the restaurant for this dish. Like a lot of my recipes, you can use all or some of the elements.

Poached Burgundy pear with pear parfait and sorbet


500g pear parfait
200g pear sorbet
2 litres Burgundy pear syrup
8 slices of dried pears

Ingredients: pears in pear syrup
13 Conference pears
550ml port
550ml red Burgundy wine
1 litre stock syrup
250ml fresh pear juice
1 cinnamon stick
1 fresh vanilla pod
1 star anise
1 lemon rind
1 orange rind
3 cloves

Method
1.Mix all ingredients together in a pot and bring to the boil.

2.Wash and peel the pears, remove the core and place them into the pear juice and cover. Cook over a low heat for approx 15 minutes or until cooked through. Remove from the heat and place in a basin of cold water to cool it down quickly.

3. Remove the pears from the liquid and place into a clean container. Pour the liquid on top and rest in the refrigerator for 36 hours.

Ingredients – Italian meringue
2 free-range egg whites
50g icing sugar
50g granulated sugar
15ml water

Method
You will need this Italian meringue for the pear parfait.

1.Place egg whites and a third of icing sugar in a mixing bowl and mix until stiff. Add remainder of icing sugar and mix for a further two minutes.

2.Place 15ml water and 50g granulated sugar in a pot and bring to the boil without stirring, until the syrup registers 112c on a sugar thermometer. Remove and place the pot into cold water for a few seconds until it reaches 110c.

3.Pour the mixture slowly into the egg whites and mix for a further five minutes.

Ingredients: pear parfait
500ml pear puree
100g Italian meringue
900ml whipped double cream
5 leaves gelatine
10ml Poire William Liqueur
2 pears (taken from burgundy liquid and finely chopped)

Method: parfait
1.Dissolve the gelatine in cold water. When soft, remove the gelatine and squeeze off the excess water. Place in a pot and add 20ml of the pear puree (wash and peel the pears and remove the cores. Cut into small pieces and place in a pot. Add the juice of one lemon to pears and puree in a blender until smooth).Place over a low heat to dissolve gelatine completely. Remove and add to the rest of the pear puree through a fine sieve.

2.Whip the cream and pour in the Italian meringue. Fold in the remainder of the puree and add the chopped pears. Add the Poire William Liqueur.

3. Pour the mixture into a lined mould (eg bread tin lined with cling film). Cover and place in the freezer overnight.

Ingredients – pear sorbet
1 litre pear puree (36 pears 1 lemon)
210g caster sugar
1 teaspoon glucose
430ml water

Method
1.Place the sugar, glucose, water and puree into a pot and cook until it reaches 72c on a sugar thermometer. Remove and return to the blender for 3-4 minutes until smooth. Remove and pass through a fine sieve.

2.Place the pot into a basin of cold water to cool down. Prepare the sorbet machine by washing with hot water and allowing to cool. Pour half the mixture into the machine and turn until it binds together. Remove and place into a container, cover and place in freezer. Pour rest of mixture into sorbet machine and turn until it binds together. Remove and add to container and freeze.

To serve
Slice the parfait into thin slices and place in the centre of a wide soup plate. Using a warmed dessert spoon, spoon an oval shape of sorbet on top of the parfait. Cut the poached pears in half and slice thinly and fan around the sorbet.

Place some dried pear slices, which can be bought in the supermarket, beside the sorbet and pour a little pear juice around the bowl.

Kevin Thornton is a Michelin-starred chef and owner of Thornton’s Restaurant on St Stephen’s Green in Dublin.

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Seasonal success is all in the game

Sunday, December 16th, 2007


Game birds such as mallard, teal, partridge and pheasant are readily available in most good quality butchers over the coming months, and I always take advantage of this bounty, as they aren’t around for long.

Where I grew up in the country, it was normal to hunt, shoot and fish for the food that surrounded us. When the game season came along, there was enormous excitement, and I shot my first pheasant when I was only ten years old. I was out with my Uncle James, who was absolute in his respect for the birds we were hunting: if you couldn’t kill it with a clean shot, then you shouldn’t shoot it.

Pheasant is in season from September to February. It is best to cook a young hen (under a year old),which has a more delicate flavour and a fine texture.

Cocks are a little larger and coarser. This bird is best when shot in December and January, when it has put on a little fat. It’s easy to tell the difference between the male and female as the male has a green neck, a dark red face with beautiful colours and a long tail, whereas the female is a less flamboyant, but nonetheless beautiful, with a brown colour.

It is possible to tell a pheasant’s age by holding it by the bottom of its beak. If it bends, it is about a year old, and if it holds its own weight, it is an older bird. Grouse is another popular game bird, but it has a brief season and is in short supply in Ireland. The meat of the grouse is the strongest of all of the game birds, so it may not be to everyone’s taste.

For a quick, delicious supper, remove the grouse flesh from the bone (you can ask your butcher to do this), place the skin side on a hot frying pan, add a spoon of honey and crushed pepper. Cook for a minute or so on either side. Sautee some cep mushrooms, and serve with roast potatoes.

On the opposite end of the taste spectrum is partridge. It is one of the best birds to introduce people to game, as it is mild in flavour and the flesh is a lighter colour. There are two types of partridge: the red-legged and the grey. The best one is the grey partridge, as it is smaller, with plumper breasts and a better flavour.

I never use partridge before December, and this is a fitting recipe for the first day of Christmas:

Roast partridge with conference pears, serves four

Partridge
4 grey partridges
4 slices of bacon fat
10ml of olive oil
Sea salt
Freshly milled white pepper
Bunch of thyme
4 shallots
4 garlic cloves
4 conference pears

Pear sauce
3/4 litre of chicken stock
4 conference pears
2 shallots
1/4 litre of pear juice
50ml of Poire William liqueur
2 crushed black peppercorns
25g of unsalted butter

Method

Partridge
1. Remove the wishbone from the partridge and season the bird, inside and out. Peel the shallot and garlic, and place them with the thyme inside the bird. Tie the bacon around the partridge.
2. Heat a pan and add the oil. Sear the bird on all sides.
3. Heat the oven to 175 degrees Celsius.
4. Wash and slice the pears and arrange in a baking dish, then place the partridge on top. Cook for 8-10 minutes, turning the bird every couple of minutes.
5. Remove the bird from the oven, remove the legs and breast from the bird and leave to rest.
6. Remove the excess fat from the pan and chop the carcass into small pieces. Add to the roasting pan. Deglaze the pan with chicken stock.

Pear sauce
1. Wash, peel and dice the pears and shallots, sautee in a warm pot, add the Poire William, flambe and reduce the amount by two-thirds.
2. Add the crushed peppercorns and pear juice, and reduce the amount by three-quarters.
3. Add the stock, bring to the boil, simmer and skim the top. Reduce the amount by three-quarters, correct the seasoning, then pass the sauce through a fine strainer.
4. Return to the heat, taste and fold in the unsalted butter gradually to thicken the sauce and make it glossy.

To serve, place the partridge on a Warm pan and put in the preheated oven for about four minutes. Place the partridge on the plate, and serve with the sauce.

Kevin Thornton is a Michelin-starred Chef and owner of Thornton’s Restaurant on St Stephen’s Green in Dublin. www.thorntonsrestaurant.com

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