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To Stew Pears (Pare and halve the fruit)
1111. Pare and halve the fruit, and lay them in a bright tin or enamelled iron saucepan. Then strew over them some lump sugar and a few cloves; pour over them some water (not more than a teacupful for a large quantity of pears). Fill the saucepan with the parings laid closely in layers, and cover with the lid. Let it boil gently till the pears are tender, and then either boil gently or simmer for five or six hours till the colour is a deep crimson. When done, and the pears are taken out, add a lump of sugar, previously well rubbed on the rind of a lemon, and a little lemon juice to the syrup. Give it a boil up, and pour it a few times over the pears to give them the same flavour. Should there not be plenty of lump sugar, the pears are much longer in acquiring their proper colour. 1112. Stewed Pears (another Receipt, less rich).-After paring and halving one pound of pears, put them into a well-lined pan with three ounces of lump sugar, two-thirds of a pint of water, and a few cloves. Stew until quite tender.
Two receipts for the same dish: the first is a long, slow stew that turns the fruit deep crimson, the second a quick weeknight compote. The colour in the first comes from hours of gentle heat with plenty of sugar, so the timing is the whole point rather than an old-fashioned excess.
- The hinge: heat, sugar, timeThe crimson is produced by hours of very low heat with a high proportion of sugar and almost no water. Rushing it, or stinting the sugar as the recipe itself warns, gives you pale stewed fruit. Keep the liquid at a bare tremble, never a rolling boil, or the halves collapse before the colour develops.
- Choose the right pearsThis suits hard cooking pears of the warden type, which hold shape for hours. Modern dessert pears will not survive; firm, barely ripe Bosc or Conference are the closest supermarket equivalents, and even those want checking after the first hour of the long stew.
- The pan matters"Bright tin or enamelled iron" and "well-lined" both mean a non-reactive vessel. Enamelled cast iron or stainless steel is right; bare cast iron or aluminium will dull the colour and pick up a metallic edge from the fruit acid.
- Lump sugarLump sugar was refined cane sugar broken from a loaf. Ordinary granulated white sugar is a direct substitute. Rubbing a lump on the lemon rind is a way of extracting the oil, which a fine grating of zest also achieves.
- The paringsPacking the peel over the fruit is not thrift alone. Pear skins carry tannin and pectin, which may deepen the colour and body the syrup. Lift them out and discard them before serving; they will be spent and papery.
- MeasuresA teacupful here is about 5 to 6 fl oz, and it is deliberately little: the pears release their own juice. Two-thirds of a pint in this book is an imperial measure, roughly 13 fl oz or a scant 1 2/3 US cups.
- Oven as an alternative to the stovetopThe receipt is a stovetop method, but five or six hours at a bare simmer is easier to hold in a covered dish in a very low oven than over a burner, and the risk of catching is lower. Check the liquid once an hour and add a spoonful of water only if the pan threatens to run dry.
- Timing on the second receiptThe lighter version takes roughly half an hour, longer for hard cooking pears, and produces amber rather than crimson pears. One pound serves two to three; the long-stewed version is richer and a half pear apiece with its syrup is ample, with cream or a plain custard.
Long-stewed pears belong to a much older English tradition than the book they appear in: hard "wardens" and other cooking pears were baked or stewed for hours with sugar and spice from the medieval period onward, since they are close to inedible raw. The second, quicker receipt offers a lighter alternative for cooks working with softer fruit.