Our neighbors have a place in New Hampshire, an old farm house with some land. On that land are fruit trees. Occasionally, some of the fruit makes it back to Somerville and to our table. This autumn, pears (of two types) were in the offing.
I've probably made a tarte tatin, the famous caramelized fruit-in-a-pan dish, one or two times before, but never with pear. My friend Steven has made many lovely tarte tatin and when I saw the pears start to soften I knew that I had to try to make a pear tarte tatin.
The recipe takes about 45 minutes of prep+stovetop cooking, then another 25-30 minutes in the oven. I used Simply Recipes version as the base and then modified to my preference.
The feedback was extremely positive. At first bite, my husband told me that this is a "make again" recipe, which is high praise indeed.
Active Time: 15 minutes / Serves: 4(?)
- 2 lbs pears (around 5 pears)
- One Lemon Cheek
- 2 T sugar, plus 2/3 C sugar
- 4 T butter
- 2 tsp Grains of Paradise
- One Puff Pastry Sheet
Method:
Prepare the Pears: Peel the best looking pear and then cut lengthwise. Remove stem and seeds and place the half in a medium bowl, then squeeze lemon juice over it. For the remaining half (and all the rest of the pears), cut into quarters. As you peel, stem, seed, and quarter the pears, put them into the bowl and squeeze lemon juice over the quarters to reduce browning. Sprinkle 2 T of sugar over the pears and toss gently to coat.
Prepare the Pan: Melt butter in 9" cast iron pan on medium heat. As the butter melts (I used salted), ensure it coats the pan evenly. Once the butter is melted, sprinkle the 2/3 C of sugar over the bottom of the pan evenly. Turn off the heat.
Prep the Oven: Turn oven to 375F.
Cook the Pears and Make the Caramel: Arrange the half pear in the center of the pan, cut side up, then surround it with the pear quarters like a fan around the center pear. Minimize gaps! Bring the pan to medium heat and cook, not touching anything, for 20 to 30 minutes until the sugar and butter have developed a beautiful caramel color. This can take quite a while, and as the color developed I reduced the heat to avoid scorching.
While the Pears Are Cooking: Dust a work surface with minimum flour and unroll the puff pastry sheet onto it. If your skillet is bigger than 9", you may need to roll out the puff pastry sheet to fit a larger pan. Trim the puff pastry to fit the pan, akin to how you'd approach a two crust apple pie. Once the pastry is ready, put 2 tsp Grains of Paradise into a mortar and grind it up a bit, but not too fine. If you have a bare dusting of (or a small grain of) green Sichuan peppercorn, include that with the Grains of Paradise. (Why Grains of Paradise? Alton Brown used these in his apple pie recipe in Good Eats and Ted Chernesky has used them since then.)
Top the Pears: Place the skillet on a sheet pan. Evenly distribute the ground Grains of Paradise over the pears. Top the pears with the trimmed puff pastry and use a fork to tuck the edges deeply into the pan.
Bake the Dish: Place the sheet pan into the oven and turn the oven down to 350F. Bake for 20-25 minutes and check on the pan of deliciousness — it should be bubbling and the puff pastry should be browning. Give more time as needed for the puff pastry to brown well and for the bubbling to thicken.
The Drama: Remove the pan from the oven. Place an inverted serving dish or a pyrex or ceramic pie dish over the pan. Carefully, and with thick gloves, invert the whole assemblage. Here, you may have some of the caramel leak out, but if you're quick and careful it'll be minimal. This step needs to be done while the pan and tarte tatin is still hot, otherwise you'll face a sticky sugar situation as the caramel starts to set.
Serving: Allow the dish to cook to warm or room temperature. You can keep this on the counter well covered for two days or in the fridge for 4 to 5 days.