Pears

A few suggestions here

Birnen-Bohnen-Speck
classic north German recipe, as learned from “Mutti”, my grandma
serves 4

prep: 20 mins
cook: ca. 50 mins unattended

broad green beans, 1kg
pears, small firm ones, 500g
potatoes, waxy, preferably small, 500g
smoked pork belly, four thick slices (ca. 400g), Gelderländer Speck is best if you can find it
summer savory, substitute thyme and/or parsley, 2 tbsp
salt (go easy on it, adjust according to your speck)
black pepper (freshly ground)

Trim and wash the beans. Cut them into ca. 5cm long pieces. Peel the potatoes. If you have big ones, cut them into chunks. Wash the pears, but don’t peel or cut anything off. Mince your herbs. In a big pot, place the speck slices and cover with cold water, around 2 cm. higher above the slices. Add pepper. Bring to a boil over medium heat and let simmer for 10 minutes.

Add the beans, potatoes, pears and the savory, fill up with water if too much has boiled away. Let cook, over medium-high heat, for another 20 to 30 mins, until the beans and the potatoes are done and the water has pretty much boiled down. This is not a soup, but some liquid is necessary. Adjust salt. You can sprinkle some more herbs over individual bowls.

Link.

+I made a large bath of pear sauce by peeling, coring and cutting the pears into small pieces. Then I put enough water to cover them in a saucepan and added a smidgeon of cinnamon and about 1/2 cup of sugar.

Once the mixture started to boil I put the heat on simmer and continued cooking (stir occasionally) until the mixture reached a mush stage. I removed the mixture and mushed it even more with my potato masher. You can serve this as a side dish with pork or chicken. You can also use it in place of applesauce in any recipe you have+

I would use this recipe that phoggi posted but add a bit of sherry and maybe something with a bit of a snap to it like ginger to give it more dimension. Taste it while cooking. Doesn't sound like enough cinnamon or sugar to me but I've never made this so I could be wrong.

Doesn't comfort food have to be something you remember from your childhood?

Thanks for the sauce recipes & others..

Vinny - comfort food to me is somethg hearty, filling & warm. I do have comfort food thoughts from
childhood mainly my grandma's cooking. Since she passed away many years ago, it was never the same.

I would go very lightly on the sugar myself, as i do think that generally pears are sweeter that some kinds of apples.

I made another batch of pear sauce using brown sugar & chestnut honey. The flavours are gorgeous with a touch of grated young ginger as suggested by saschac # 3. Pureed. Like to try it with duck?!

Added cassia bark, dark cinnamon sticks available at Asian grocery stores. Much stronger smell..broken to small pieces, then removed.

The syrup is lovely - too gd to dispose. What shall I do with it? Add to a cocktail?

Edited by: June2

Maybe you could use it in place of plum sauce for peking duck. Sounds like something that would be fine to freeze or you could mail some to me. ;)

Was thinking of Peking duck... but how could I mail some to you? In a snap lock bag?
Would love to do it otherwise.