© David Loftus
baked pears with wine and a scrumptious walnut cream
method
When I worked in France, I would visit a lovely little bakery once a week to buy a tart filled with a really amazing walnut cream, with poached glazed pears on top. It was such a joy to eat that I wanted to give you a recipe based on these flavors the combination is fantastic. At Christmas time, its nice to use chestnuts instead of walnuts, or you could even bash up or grate some good-quality chocolate to sprinkle over the pears as well.
Preheat the oven to 425ΊF. Score down the length of the vanilla bean and remove the seeds by scraping a knife down the inside of each half. Put the pears into a tight-fitting ovenproof pot or pan, add the brown sugar, wine, vanilla pod and seeds, and the peel and juice of 1 orange and bring to the boil. Sprinkle over half the walnuts and then put in the oven to bake. Every so often, baste the pears with the syrup they are cooking in, as this will give them a nice glaze. Cook for around 20 to 30 minutes, depending on the ripeness, until the pears are tender but still holding their shape, then remove from the oven and allow to cool while you roast the remaining walnuts on a baking tray in the oven for 5 minutes make sure you keep an eye on them as they can quickly go from golden to black and you dont want burned walnuts!
Remove the vanilla pod from the syrup. When the walnuts are done, either whizz them in a food
processor or bash them up with a pestle and mortar until you have a paste. Whip up the mascarpone with the walnut paste, the zest and juice of the other orange and enough sugar to sweeten, and serve this cream with the baked pears, the nuts, some orange peel and some of the cooking syrup.
serves: 4
ingredients
1 vanilla bean
4 good-quality seasonal pears, peeled
Ή⁄₂ cup packed dark brown sugar, plus a little extra
2 large wine glasses of red or white wine
2 oranges
7oz shelled walnuts
9oz mascarpone