Pears Poached in Perry
I’m back in Monaco after a few days down in Tuscany for a friends wedding (congratulations Lisa and David!). The four and half hour drive around the coast was amazing, not only for some of the scenery but also for the quality of the coffee at all of the small Italian service stations I stopped at along the way. Little Chef, you have a lot to learn! Anyway, I digress. As you know from my last post, I am very much limited as to which of Gordon Ramsay’s Great British Pub Food recipes I can attempt here in my Monaco kitchen. However, this recipe for pears poached in perry is as simple as can be – but scrumptious all the same!
Perry, or pear cider, seems to be all the rage right now in the UK. Huge marketing spend from the likes of Magners has seen the idea of perry drinking quickly change from something done by 80 year old web-footed farmers in bubblefuck Herefordshire to a bit of a trendy, high street party drink. Something that your younger sister might vomit up on a Friday night “up the town”.
To be honest, I’m not a huge fan of Magners. As a food product it is pretty shit. It tastes far too sweet and sickly. Their TV ads cleverly state that “the only fruit that goes into a Magners pear cider is pears”, which then allows them to get away with adding that the product is “100% pears”. This makes it sound as though the drink is made from nothing but fermented pear juice. But of course, while there may indeed be no other fruit but pears in there, there are a truck load of other nasty additives that just don’t count as fruit. Swines!
Anyway, it’s a poor imitation of the real deal, which is usually made on farms and served strong, often straight from the cask. But for years, traditional English perry has been on the verge of extinction, so if the likes of Magners new push into perry increases the general awareness of the genuine article, then I guess that can only be a good thing…
Getting English perry here in Monaco would prove impossible, but not to worry. France, and in particular Normandy, has a long heritage of producing great cider and perry. I was able to pick up this traditional “poiré de Noramndie” at the local Carrefour.
While I was there, I also picked up the other ingredients of firm but ripe pears, sugar, cinnamon, cloves, star anise and black peppercorns.
To start things off, I quickly peeled the pears using an everyday potato peeler. You might want to use a sharp knife to tidy up the top of the fruit, where the stork meets the skin. Leave the stork on though – it looks so much prettier when served that way.
The next stage isn’t strictly taken from the Great British Pub Food recipe, to me it seems a bit of a glaring omission, Gordon – core the pears! I’m not sure why Ramsay misses this step out. When I learned to cook at Leiths in London, poached pears was one of the first dishes we were taught. I don’t know what kind of brain washing agent they put in the kitchen wine there, but since leaving I’ve found it impossible to deviate from doing things “the Leiths way” (for another Leiths way tip, see my post Sausage and Mash). Anyway, I instinctively flipped over the pears and hollowed out the hard bit of the core from the base of each fruit.
At this stage, I also find it useful to trim off the base of the pears so that they sit level when presented on the plate.
For the poaching spices, I gathered up some cinnamon sticks, cloves, star anise and black peppercorns.
I added these to a saucepan along with a generous swoosh of sugar and a pint or so of the perry (keeping back a small glass for the chef, of course!).
I brought the pan to the boil and let the liquid simmer for ten minutes of so until the sugar had melted and the syrup had thickened slightly. I then lowered in the pears and left them to poach away merrily.
After about twenty minutes the pears were ready. You can check they are done by piercing one with a small knife – the flesh should be soft and tender all the way through. Using a slotted spoon, I set the pears to one side to cool and then turned up the heat under the poaching syrup to bring it back to a steady boil. I let the liquid boil away until it had reduced down to a thick, syrupy sauce.
With the poached pears in a bowl, I poured over the syrup and gently tossed the pears around to coat them evenly in the sweet sauce.
To serve, I popped each pear upright on a plate with a scoop of good vanilla ice cream and a generous drizzle of the poaching syrup. Delicious!
It’s such a simple dessert but at the same time it is really tasty, the sweetness of the fruit and syrup set against the spicy hints of anise and cloves and cinnamon. And unlike many desserts in Ramsay’s Great British Pub Food cookbook, it isn’t overly decadent. A perfect midweek treat that even the most ham-fisted of chefs can manage!
