ROAST CORELLA PEARS with VANILLA, CARDOMOM AND ORANGE

A simple seasonal dessert that's delicious served with mascarpone or ice cream and drizzled with the infused cooking syrup.  Alternatively eat the pears for breakfast, sliced on top of granola.  Fi suggests trying other flavor combinations when roasting like vanilla, kaffir lime leaves and peppercorns.

serves 6 as a dessert or as an accompaniment

6 firm Corella pears, halved lengthwise

3 tablespoons honey

60g unsalted butter

1 vanilla pod split half lengthwise

2 cardamom pod crushed

¼ cup castor sugar

peel from half an orange with pith removed

½ cup orange juice

Preheat oven to 175°C (155°C fan-forced).

Place honey, butter, vanilla, cardamom, sugar, orange peel and juice in a ceramic baking dish just large enough to hold a single layer of the pears.  Place in the preheating oven for 10 minutes.

Remove dish from oven and stir mixture to combine making sure sugar has all dissolved.  Arrange pears cut side down in a single layer in the baking dish.  Cover with a piece of baking paper then a layer of foil and seal edges.

Bake in the oven for 30 minutes, remove foil and turn pears over, replace foil and return to bake for 15 minutes. Remove foil and bake another 15 minutes or until pears are tender when pierced with a knife and golden around edges. Cooking times will vary slightly, depending on size and ripeness of the fruit. The cooking juices will have reduced to a syrup.

Serve pears warm, or at room temperature with a jug of the cooking juices.

NOTE: Corella pears can be substituted with the Beurre Bosc variety. Because Beurre Bosc are larger fruit cooking may take up to 1½ hours .

If not eating straight away, store roast pears and cooking juices in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to a week.

Fiona Hammond © March 2018

Recipe, photos and styling by Fiona Hammond. www.fionahammondfood.com