Sweet and succulent pears for all tastes

Published 12:00 am Tuesday, November 22, 2016

When I was a kid, I loved both kinds of pears — the ones that came in cans and the fresh ones that grew on trees. I’m not entirely certain I realized they were the same fruit. Sort of.

Now that I am older, I still have a secret, shameful fondness for the canned stuff. But what really thrills me are the fresh fruit in all their varieties: Bartlett, Anjou, Bosc, Starkrimson, Comice and more.

This time of year, it’s pearadise.

In cooking, pears are like tinsel on the Christmas tree. They don’t really stand out by themselves, in most cases — they are the added something extra that brings the whole dish together and makes it seem more special.

Sweet and succulent, pears are generally not going to be part of a main course. They’re not an entree kind of fruit. But they bring an irresistible flavor and compelling texture to many desserts and breakfasts.

So of course, when I made an assortment of pear-related dishes, I began with a salad.

Pears are a natural ingredient for salads. Softer than apples, but just as sweet, they provide a delicious counterpoint to the acidity of a dressing, along with a textural contrast to the crisp lettuce.

But best of all is the way pears go with cheese. The embarrassingly easy recipe I made uses Stilton, which is the king of cheeses. Unfortunately, as befits a king, it is also one of the more expensive cheeses.

If you don’t want to pay the big bucks for the Stilton, you can achieve very nearly the same flavor combination by using another blue cheese (blue cheese goes with pear like caramel goes with vanilla). Try a Roquefort or a gorgonzola and you won’t be disappointed.

For that matter, you can just use the cheap blue-cheese crumbles. Your mouth will love you for it.

The most gorgeous and elegant way to prepare pears has to be to poach them in port for a dessert that will not be soon forgotten.

I’m not kidding about that. I had a pear that had been poached in port six years ago, and I still think about it today.

The appeal of this sophisticated dessert is not just the color, which is a deep and satisfying shade of ruby. The process of making it, which is very nearly as simple as the pear salad, also imbues the pear with a hearty flavor, slightly sweet, that is heightened by the use of a few aromatics: orange peel, lemon peel, cinnamon and clove.

Prepared like this, the pear is great on its own. But if you want to add a scoop of vanilla ice cream — purely for the sake of contrast, you understand — no one will complain.

Because the port-poached pear was so attractive, I decided to make another good-looking dessert, Pear Upside-Down Cake.

This dish builds on a foundation of pears and caramel, another perfect combination. The pears absorb the caramel on the bottom of the cake pan — which of course becomes the top of the cake — with the cake batter above (which is to say below) that.

But this is no typical cake batter. It’s lighter than most, with whipped egg whites folded into it, but is also grounded with just a hint of the flavor of corn from a few tablespoons of cornmeal.

Prepared like this, the cake is great on its own. But if you want to add a scoop of vanilla ice cream (or caramel gelato) — purely for the sake of contrast, you understand no one will complain.

If you want to try making a baked dessert with pears, but find the idea of an entire cake too daunting, then you can try a cobbler.

With a cobbler, the baked part is only on top, which makes it easier to prepare. And the top part of a Drop-Biscuit Pear and Dried Cherry Cobbler is so foolproof that even a first-time baker is assured of a successful result.

The other secret to this recipe is its use of dried cherries. Dried cherries are like raisins, only a hundred times better because they’re cherries. They create tiny little explosions of flavor in your mouth. But even so, they do not overpower the relatively subtle taste of the pears. The two flavors complement; they do not compete.

And they go beautifully with the drop-biscuit topping. It’s like jam with the buttery biscuits, only better.

Prepared like this, the cobbler is great on its own. But if you want to add a scoop of vanilla ice cream — well, you know.