Today, tomorrow, to keep: Pears
LIA LEENDERTZ ENJOYS A SEASONAL CROP WITH A TRIO OF RECIPES FOR NOW AND LATER. THIS MONTH: PEARS
Even if you don’t grow your own, you’re likely to come across a glut from time to time – from a friend’s allotment, perhaps, in your weekly veg box, or at a stall at the farmers’ market. Finding varied ways to eat and store this seasonal bounty is satisfying to mind, appetite and pantry. Spend a few hours with your glut and make a dish to eat right away, another for the next day, and a little something for the larder as a future treat.
Most pears come along a little later than apples, and although there are a few summer varieties, mostly they are a fruit that sees us through late autumn and into winter: a handy thing at a time when fresh fruit is becoming scarce. Their point of ripening varies by variety; most are ripe by now, but there are some that can be wrapped and stored in a shed, then brought indoors to ripen slowly.
The tricky thing about pears is that their progression from hard to perfectly ripe to mush happens very quickly, and is easily missed. They should be harvested just unripe, and then watched like a hawk for the moment they start to turn.
This is one of the factors that makes cooking with pears so appealing. Unripe pears cook beautifully, holding their shape and softening up, retaining their own delicious flavour while taking on those flavours they are cooked with. Cooked and uncooked pears have the pleasing ability to straddle the sweet and savoury worlds: you can put them into hearty autumnal salads or pickle them and eat them with cheese, and they will be just as happy as they are in a cake or spooned over ice-cream. »