Home › The Pear › Compote of Pears
Compote of Pears
Stew pears in a syrup as above, paring and coring, but leaving them whole unless very large, when they may be halved. Put them in the dish from which they are to be served and over them spread a lemon gelatine or some delicate jelly of pure fruit in place of the gelatine. The syrup should meantime be cooked down till thick, then poured over the fruit and jelly. Chill and serve.
A poaching-and-glazing method rather than a fixed formula: the original leans on a sugar syrup given earlier in the chapter, so the quantities are yours to set.
- The missing syrup"A syrup as above" in books of this type means roughly equal weights of sugar and water, or a lighter 2 cups water to 1 cup sugar, simmered until clear. Use enough to cover the pears; a strip of lemon peel or a split vanilla pod is period-appropriate.
- Choose a firm pearBosc and Anjou hold their shape; a fully ripe Bartlett collapses into sauce. Firm, slightly underripe fruit poaches best.
- Poaching timeWhole pared pears need 15-25 minutes at a bare simmer, depending on size and ripeness. They are done when a skewer meets no resistance at the thickest point. Boiling hard splits them and clouds the syrup.
- Keep them submergedPears float, and the exposed side goes brown and undercooked. A round of parchment laid on the surface, or a small plate, keeps them under.
- The hinge: reduce the syrup separatelyLift the fruit out first, then boil the syrup down hard until it coats a spoon. Reducing with the pears still in it overcooks them to mush. Let the reduction cool to lukewarm before pouring, or it will melt the jelly.
- "Lemon gelatine" and "delicate jelly"This means a lightly set lemon jelly or a clear fruit jelly such as apple, quince or redcurrant, spread over the fruit as a glaze. Currant or quince jelly warmed just enough to spoon is the simplest modern reading.
- ChillingThe recipe says only to chill; give it long enough to become thoroughly cold and for the reduced syrup to set to a glaze. Serve cold, with the syrup spooned over.
- YieldThe original gives no quantities. Reckon on one whole pear per person, or a half if the fruit is large.
Compote comes from the French for a mixture or stew of fruit cooked in syrup, and it has long named a standing dessert of whole or halved fruit poached until translucent and served in its own liquor, a form well established in French cookery. It suited the pear better than almost any other fruit: hard cooking varieties are often barely edible raw, and slow cooking in sugar turns a gritty keeper into something worth putting on the table. The glazing with jelly here belongs to a taste for glossy, chilled desserts, in which fruit makes a lighter close to a meal than pastry.