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Meringued Pears
6 large pears 6 tablespoons sugar grated lemon rind candied ginger 3 egg whites 1/4 cup powdered sugar 4 tablespoons water Pare and core pears, place in baking dish, fill centers with lemon rind and candied ginger. Add water and bake till tender. Cover with meringue from stiffly beaten egg whites and the powdered sugar. Brown in oven. Serves 6.
A plain baked-pear dessert finished under a meringue cap. The recipe assumes a cook who knows her oven, so the two things it omits — temperature and time — are the ones worth fixing first.
- Oven temperatureBake the pears at 350F, covered loosely, until a knife slides in without resistance: 30 to 45 minutes depending on ripeness and variety. The meringue then browns at the same 350F in about 12 to 15 minutes.
- The unused sugarSix tablespoons of sugar appear in the ingredient list and are never called for in the method. Scatter it over the pears with the water before baking; it dissolves into a light syrup in the dish and keeps the fruit from drying.
- Choice of pearBosc or Anjou hold their shape through baking; Bartlett collapses once fully ripe. Buy them a little underripe and pare them just before they go in the dish, or they will brown.
- Coring whole pearsCoring -- The recipe says only 'pare and core' and 'fill centers,' which reads either way: whole pears cored from the blossom end with an apple corer or melon baller, or halves laid cut-side up with the core scooped out. If you go with whole pears, use a dish that holds them snugly so they do not topple as they soften.
- Powdered sugarIn books of this period "powdered sugar" usually means the fine free-running sugar we call caster or superfine, not cornstarch-cut confectioners' sugar. Either works in the meringue; confectioners' gives a slightly softer, matte finish.
- Meringue proportionA quarter cup of sugar to three whites is a lean meringue — soft, not crisp, and inclined to weep if it stands. Beat the whites to soft peaks, add the sugar in stages, and put the dessert together shortly before serving.
- Ginger and lemonNo quantities are given. One to two teaspoons of finely chopped candied ginger and the grated rind of half a lemon per pear is a reasonable reading; more ginger than that overwhelms the fruit.
- ServingServes six, one pear each, and it is best eaten warm the day it is made. Meringue over damp fruit will slump and seep in the refrigerator overnight.