June 2004 - Florentine Pears

Well, here I am trying to pack in all these recipes in the last week of the month and I wishing that I had gotten myself more organised early in the month. Part of the problem was that I was stuck on what to make from issue #28.

I wasn't overly impressed with the range of vegetarian recipes on offer in this issue. There was a couple of pasta dishes, a rather uninspiring soup and a couple of salads. There was also a ricotta torte with two pestos which would be nice but needed an army of people to eat it. The other option was a rather strange Spiced coconut eggs, which is a curried egg recipe but it contains not only coconut cream but also thick cream and hollandaise sauce... A very strange combination to say the least. I was curious to know what it tasted like but not curious enough to actually make it.

Since I couldn't find anything vegetarian that really interested me so it was left with going for a meaty dish or dessert. After another trawl through the issue I decided on dessert. There were a number of really good desserts featuring pears. I love pears and this is the perfect time of year for them here. They are lovely and sweet and juicy. I was initially going to make the Pear & Ginger Tart. I considered making when my grandparents came to dinner at the end of last month but it is covered in whipped cream and my grandfather can't eat large amounts of cream. There is also a lovely Pear Charlotte recipe however it used a brioche loaf and I have never found a brioche loaf here.

In the end I decided to go with Valli Little's Florentine Pears. I used beurre bosc pears which were poached in a sugar syrup and then served with a chocolate and coffee sauce, vanilla ice cream and a florentine biscuit. The florentine seems to be rather superfluous but it was nice all the same. As you can see the recipe did not include making the florentines. They are pretty easy to make but I went the easy route and bought some. They are nice but not as nice as home made ones. I think that if I was going to serve this at a dinner party I would make the florentines. I would probably make the vanilla ice cream too. Having said that, I served it with Weis' vanilla bean ice cream. It was very good for a supermarket ice cream. It wasn't super rich but rich enough for me. The seeds from the vanilla beans could be seen speckled throughout and the taste was terrific. I would highly recommend it. Actually, I would highly recommend the whole recipe. I think that it would look impressive for a dinner party and is a great make ahead dessert too. Plus it gave me a chance to use my lovely new bowl.