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Baked Pears
Neatly wipe and cut six medium, sound winter pears in halves, lengthwise; carefully cut away the cores with a knife. Place them on a tin with half gill cold water and one teaspoon butter; then dredge two tablespoons granulated sugar over them. Place in a hot oven to bake for thirty minutes or till soft, being careful to baste them frequently with their own liquor. Remove, dress on a hot dish, pour the juice over and serve. The addition of a pony of rum, cognac or Swiss kirsch, when the water is poured in, will give an excellent flavour.
A plain fruit dessert that depends almost entirely on the pears themselves. Two measurements and one oven word need translating.
- Half a gillA gill is half a cup, so half a gill is 1/4 cup (2 fl oz). It is barely enough to cover the bottom of the pan, which is the point: it steams and reduces into a syrup rather than poaching the fruit.
- A ponyA pony is one fluid ounce, about two tablespoons. Added to that small amount of water it flavours the syrup without thinning it noticeably.
- A hot ovenRead this as roughly 400-450F, with 425F a reasonable middle. At that heat the sugar and pear juice concentrate at the edges of the pan while the fruit softens; a moderate oven will give you soft pears in watery liquid instead.
- The tinA shallow rimmed baking pan or metal sheet with sides, not a deep casserole. The liquor needs to stay in a thin layer so it reduces and stays reachable with a spoon for basting.
- Winter pearsBosc, Anjou or Comice, still firm. Bartletts and other soft summer pears collapse into sauce well before thirty minutes. Set the halves cut side up so they hold their juice.
- Basting is the techniqueThe syrup is thin at first and thickens as it reduces. Spoon it over every eight or ten minutes; the last two bastings are what glaze the fruit and give the finished dish its shine.
- TimingThirty minutes suits large, firm, barely ripe fruit. Start testing at twenty with a knife tip at the thickest part; ripe pears may be done in fifteen and will slump if pushed further.
- YieldTwelve halves, serving six. Warm the serving dish as directed, since the syrup stiffens quickly on a cold plate.
Alexander Filippini spent decades at Delmonico's in New York, and The International Cook Book (1906) reflects a restaurant kitchen's habit of keeping simple fruit courses on hand alongside elaborate ones. Baked pears belong to the older tradition of the winter fruit store: late-ripening varieties such as Bosc and Anjou were picked hard, held for weeks or months in a cool cellar, and cooked when they were past their best raw. Baking with a little sugar and a spoonful of spirit is the standard treatment for such fruit across northern Europe, and the recipe here offers a choice between rum, cognac and Swiss kirsch.