Pears in the Kitchen

Pears are more difficult than apples. They ripen from the inside out, they go from hard to mushy in about a day, and most of the pears people buy get eaten either too early or too late.

Here is how to handle them, and what to do with them.

Buy them hard and ripen them at home

Pears do not ripen well on the tree — commercial growers pick them firm for exactly that reason. A rock-hard pear at the market is normal.

Leave them at room temperature and check the neck, not the body. Press gently just below the stem with your thumb: when it gives slightly, the pear is ready. The body will still feel firm at that point, and that is correct. If the body is soft, the inside is already past it.

To speed it up, put them in a paper bag with a banana. To slow it down, refrigerate them once ripe — that buys you three or four days.

Which pear for what

Bosc and Anjou hold their shape when cooked. These are the ones for poaching, roasting and tarts.

Bartlett and Comice go soft fast. Eat them raw, or use them in purées, sauces and ice cream where texture does not matter.

Poaching

The classic treatment, and the most forgiving. Peel the pears, leave them whole with the stem on, and simmer gently in red wine or white wine with sugar, a cinnamon stick, a strip of lemon peel and a few peppercorns.

Keep the heat very low. A rolling boil breaks them apart.

They are done when a skewer goes in with slight resistance — not falling apart. Let them cool in the liquid; they keep absorbing color and flavor as they sit.

Roasting

Halve them, scoop out the core, and roast cut side up at 400°F with butter and honey until the edges caramelize.

Better than poaching if you want concentration rather than elegance.

With savory food

Pear and blue cheese is the obvious pairing, and it works because the sweetness cuts the salt.

Less obvious: pear with pork, with duck, with game. A pear roasted alongside pork loin does what apple does, with more perfume and less acid.

Pear and walnut in a salad with bitter leaves — endive, radicchio — is a combination I come back to constantly.

A note on pear juice

The main nutritional value in a pear is its fiber, and most of that is in the flesh and skin. Juicing removes it, which leaves you with concentrated fruit sugar and not much else.

If you want what the fruit offers, eat the fruit. Leave the skin on — it holds most of the fiber and a good part of the flavor.