As I mentioned in the last post, one of our new favorite shows is Gordon Ramsay's F Word shown on BBC America. Last week we were watching one of the DVR'd episodes (our DVR is approximately 85% full of either the F Word or Kitchen Nightmares, lol). For those of you who haven't checked it out yet, the format of the show is a group of people (the "brigade") work in the F Word's restaurant kitchen to prepare a 3 course meal for a group of 50 people. In between courses, Ramsay has various segments which typically include healthy eating, celebrity cook off and the season's project (i.e. rearing pigs, lamb, veal calves to be butchered and cooked at the end of the season). We love the show and all recipes are available online! It's perfect for us home chefs ;-)
Marily and I had just finished eating our dinner while watching the episode when the dessert course came up. The brigade had to prepare a pear tatin...which looked absolutely delicious. Marily enthusiastically shouted out "I want that!" I started cycling through the ingredients in my head and realized we had most of them in the house. The only thing I thought we were missing was the puff pastry, until Marily reminded me we had some pie crusts in the fridge. So, I jumped up and excitedly ran to the kitchen to grab all the ingredients.
The original recipe can be found here: Ramsay's Pear Tatin
The website is UK based, so I've included the conversions and my adjustments below.
Ingredients
2 pears
4 star anise
1-2 vanilla pods
~21 oz puff pastry (refrigerated pie crusts will do the job in a pinch)
powdered sugar for dusting
vanilla ice cream
For the caramel
6 3/4 Tbsp granulated sugar
6 3/4 Tbsp butter
splash of dark rum
Method
- Preheat the oven to 400˚F (I only did 350˚F as my non stick pan could only go that high)
- Peel the pears, halve them and scoop out the cores with a melon baller to create a small, even circular hole.
- Insert a star anise into each hole. Use a small knife to cut out the stalks at the top of the pears and replace them with the pieces of vanilla pod.
Roll out the pastry to a large sheet. Divide into 4 pieces. Mould each piece of pastry around the peeled side of each pear and trim away the excess pastry. Place the pears in the fridge to rest for 10 minutes.
To make the caramel melt the sugar and butter in a large heavy-based ovenproof pan. Finish with a splash of rum to deglaze the pan and loosen the caramel.- Remove the pears from the fridge and place them cut-side down on top of the caramel. Generously dust the pastry with powdered sugar.
- Bake the tatins for 8-10 minutes until the pastry is golden and crisp (since I used a lower heat, I cooked the pears for about 15 minutes). Leave to stand for a minute or so, then slide a palate knife under each pear and carefully lift and flip over on to a warmed plate.
- Trickle over the caramelized pan juices and serve with scoops of vanilla ice-cream.
