WHAT GOES WITH PEARS RECIPES

Steps:

• 1. Preheat the oven to 180ºC/350ºF/gas 4. Place the butter in a small saucepan on a low heat. As it melts, finely grate over the clementine zest and squeeze in the juice, add the cinnamon, then bring to the boil and turn the heat off.
  2. Lay out 4 sheets of pastry on a clean tea towel, slightly overlapping, so they cover the tea towel completely, with a little overhang at one of the shorter ends. Working quickly so your pastry doesn’t dry out, drizzle over half of the spiced melted butter, then brush all over, using it to secure the pastry where it overlaps – this will help protect the pastry and flavour it. Sprinkle over 1 heaped teaspoon of sugar to add a nice bit of crunch, then carefully layer the rest of the pastry sheets on top and brush over half of the remaining melted butter.
  3. Use your hands to crumble the leftover goodies over the pastry from a height, making sure they are evenly distributed, and leaving the two shortest edges empty (about 10cm). Bash up the nuts in a pestle and mortar, then add them to the party and break over the chocolate. Using a box grater, coarsely grate over the fruit (cores and all), break in the biscuits, then drizzle everything with the honey.
  4. Fold the shortest edges inwards, then lift up your tea towel at one of the longest ends and use it to help you carefully roll up your strudel.
  5. Brush a large non-stick baking tray with a little of the remaining butter and confidently transfer the strudel to the tray. Brush or rub it all over with the last of the butter, then sprinkle over a little sugar. Bake on the bottom of the hot oven for 35 minutes, or until crisp, golden, and gorgeous.
  6. Once the time’s up, leave to cool, then dust with icing sugar and use a serrated knife to cut the strudel into 5cm slices. Delicious served with hot custard, a scoop of vanilla ice cream, or a dollop of Greek-style yoghurt.

Steps:

• Halve the vanilla pod lengthways, scrape out the black seeds and put in a large saucepan with the wine, sugar, cinnamon and thyme. Cut each piece of pod into three long thin strips, add to pan, then lower in the pears.
• Poach the pears, covered, for 20-30 mins, making sure they are covered in the wine. The cooking time will very much depend on the ripeness of your pears – they should be tender all the way through when pierced with a cocktail stick. You can make these up to 2 days ahead and chill.
• Take the pears from the pan, then boil the liquid to reduce it by half so that it’s syrupy. Serve each pear with the cooled syrup, a strip of vanilla, a piece of cinnamon and a small thyme sprig.