JOANNA'S FOOD: family cooking, from scratch, every day


Sunday, October 21, 2007

Baked pears with pine nuts



















Delicious, easy ... good enough for dinner, lovely for breakfast with yoghurt.

Baked pears with pine nuts

100g raisins
300ml Marsala
7-8 pears
lemon juice
40g soft dark brown sugar
the seeds of a vanilla pod
40g pine nuts

Heat the oven to 180C. Soak the raisins for half an hour in the warmed Marsala. Halve the pears and scrape out the cores. Put the raisins in the bottom of an ovenproof dish, lay the pears on top, cut side up. Squeeze out the juice of a lemon over the pears, sprinkle with sugar and vanilla seeds, then add the Marsala.

Bake in the oven for 45-50 minutes, adding the pine nuts after half an hour. They should be soft when you take them out of the oven ... serve at room temperature.

This is pretty similar to a recipe by Diana Henry published in the Times recently. If you don't know her book Crazy Water Pickled Lemons, have a look at it next time you're in a library or bookshop, it's full of unusual and good tastes - Middle Eastern, North African and Mediterranean-ish ... but not your run-of-the-mill Med-diet=tomatoes-and-olive-oil+pasta

11 comments:

MyKitchenInHalfCups said...

Ummm . . . I need vanilla beans now for 3 recipes! Excellent Joanna.

Amanda at Little Foodies said...

This sounds wonderful. I think I can taste it already!

Chris said...

Yum! I love pears. Love pine nuts...so this is perfect! Thanks!

Anonymous said...

Sounds delicious and I need some different pear recipes as I have an abundance of pears from the tree. Sara from farmingfriends

Riana Lagarde said...

That books sounds right up my alley! ANd the pears look fabulous. We have been eating a lot of them lately as well. Good idea!

ALso, cornbread! yummmmmmm, must go make some, right now.

Figs, Bay, Wine said...

Just beautiful! The fragrance in the kitchen must be divine. Just back from the market with no pears, and I'm kicking myself!

Vida said...

I must confess, I do like a bit of Marsala... Vida x

Anonymous said...

Mm, Joanna, lovely.

Anonymous said...

Great - just wondering what to do with my pears. they need using now.
Have you any way of preseving them?
Thanks
TopVeg

David Hall said...

Mmmm, nice. I would have these with walnuts, they seem to go so well with pears. Delicious.

Cheers
David

Susan from Food Blogga said...

Oh, how lovely. I have so many pears to use up too. Thanks for the delicious idea, Joanna!