04 October 2011

Eat: Pear Cardamon Sauce


Staying with the in-laws in September meant we got to pick pears from the same trees my husband picked from when he was a kid. Watching father and son go pear picking is just too sweet, especially because Peanut tends to stand in wooded areas and shout out with delight “we're in the forest!” Never mind that adults see a little strip of trees and bushes squished between a residential parking lot and a horse pasture. As far as Peanut's concerned, it's a forest, and he's right.

I quickly discovered that I had a bit of a problem on my hands. Say you convince your husband that taking a 2-year-old pear picking is a great way to spend an hour or so. Say they come home with a bucket full of pears. What does one do with the pears? It's a lot of pears. How about pear sauce? If apples make applesauce, pears must make pear sauce. So I gave it a shot and wow – the results were delicious! So good that they came back a couple days later with two buckets of pears.

Basically, it came down to peeling pears and putting them in a pot with a tiny bit of water, a few lemon peels (preserve color), and a few cardamon pods (my inspirational moment). They were fairly hard and took a lot longer to cook than apples, but when they were soft I ran a hand blender through it and called it quits. It would be nice to try it with a food press to get more texture. I'm also planning to cook it down a bit next time so it's less damp when it comes out of the freezer.

Pear Sauce with Cardamon

2-3 lbs pears
lemon
3 cardamon pods

Peel, core, and cut the pears into chunks. Put the pears into a good sized pot. Use a vegetable peeler to cut three thin slices of peel from the lemon. Add lemon peel and cardamon pods to pot. Cook on low heat for about an hour. Blend or mash as you wish. Cook down a bit more if you want a thicker sauce. Eat warm or cold. Freezes well.

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