Our good friends at Smyth and Barry will be sharing some of their favourite recipes with us from time to time so we thought we'd kick off with a delicious festive one - tis the season!
Pickled Pears
We love to pickle this season’s delicate Pear William as a delicious accompaniment to
Cashel Blue or, our particular favourite, Crozier Blue served with warm brown soda
bread. This is a quick pickle, once the pears are poached in the pickling liquor and
cooled they are ready to eat. But if decanted immediately into sterilized jars, these
pears will keep for months. You might make them as a delightful gift for a foodie
friend?
For particularly festive pears, as an alternative to using the pickling spices set out
below, you might like to use the mulled wine spice mix from Green Saffron. We adore
this blend of spices from blended in Middleton, Co. Cork.
Ingredients
4 Pear William (or your favourite pear varietal)
500ml White Wine Vinegar (we use Aspall)
350g Caster Sugar
1 Cinnamon Stick
Peel of 1 Orange
1 Bay Leaf
2 Cloves
1 Star Anise
Method
Bring the vinegar, sugar and pickling spices to the boil in a medium saucepan, stirring
frequently to dissolve the sugar. Once boiled, reduce to a gentle simmer.
Now peel your pears and submerge in the simmering pickling liquor. Cover the saucepan
and poach the pears for about 40 minutes until the pears are tender. You can test the
pears with a skewer or the tip of a small knife.
Remove the saucepan from the heat and allow the pears to cool in the liquid. Eat once
cooled, or decant into a sterilized vessel and eat later.
