Tag: pears

Rhubarb, pear and ginger

Another rhubarb jam revelation. I thought that the pear flavour would be drowned out, but no, this is a winner. 

INGREDIENTS:

  • 1kg rhubarb stems, chopped
  • 2 pears (around 200g)
  • 50g crystalised stem ginger
  • 1.2kg sugar
  • Juice of 2 lemons, or one lemon, one orange

METHOD:

  • Chop the rhubarb, and chop the ginger, mix and cover with the sugar
  • The next day, add the lemon juice, and the peeled chopped pears. 
  • Bring to a simmer and cook for 20 minutes, until the jam is thick.
  • Pour into warmed jars. 

Poached pears with chocolate

We had poached pears with ice-cream and chocolate sauce tonight, inspiration from Nigel Slater’s Kitchen Diaries.

INGREDIENTS:

  • 4 pears
  • 2 heaped tbsp caster sugar
  • a vanilla pod
  • 1 tbsp lemon juice
  • 200g dark chocolate
  • ice-cream

METHOD:

  • Pour a litre of water into a large saucepan, add the sugar, vanilla and lemon juice and bring to the boil.
  • Meanwhile peel the pears, halve them and remove the cores with a teaspoon.
  • Add the pears to the boiling syrup, and poach for 15 minutes
  • Allow to cool in the syrup
  • To serve, take 200ml of the syrup, and boil this with the chocolate.
  • Serve the pears over the ice-cream with chocolate sauce poured over the top.

Mashed potatoes and pears with ginger

This is an astonishingly good combination to serve with pork.

INGREDIENTS:

  • Enough potatoes for the number of people being served
  • About half that quantity of hard pears
  • Salt, pepper, butter
  • A tiny amount of finely chopped crystalised ginger

METHOD:

  • Peel and boil the potatoes as you would normally for mashed potatoes. Drain them, saving the boiling water
  • Peel and core the pears, and poach them in the potato water until they are soft
  • Mash the pears and potatoes together with salt, pepper, butter and the chopped ginger