Sunday, July 15, 2012

Poached Pears with Walnut Chocolate Fudge and Creme Anglais

Yes Yes.. this is made multiple times on MasterChef. So basically my inspiration is from there. I did get firm pears while shopping for veggies this morning and after visiting http://thebarefootkitchenwitch.typepad.com/the_barefoot_kitchen_witc/2008/02/valentines-d-12.html and http://www.tarteletteblog.com/2010/10/recipe-gluten-free-spiced-poached-pears.html here's my version of the same.


Ingredients :
For Poached Pears:
4 pears - ensure that they are firm
Leftover kitsch from the canned peaches - you could just use water
Water to cover the pears completely
1 cinnamon bark
4 cloves
1 tbsp lemon juice
A handful of raisins

For chocolate walnut fudge (Adapted by recipe from Nestle Milkmaid):
1/2 tin milkmaid - I made an apple upside down cake with the other half
10g of chocolate - I used a piece of homemade ooty chocolate
1tbsp unsalted butter
2 tbsp cocoa powder
Chopped walnuts

For Creme Anglais (I look at this as a replacement to custard made from store brought powder):
2 egg yolks
1tbsp sugar
100ml milk
100ml fresh cream
1/2 tsp vanilla essence

How I made it :
Poached Pears 
1. Remove the peel of the pears. Place them in a tall pan. Cover with kitsch and water.
2, Add the cinnamon, cloves and lemon juice.
3. Bring to a boil and let it simmer away for about 30 minutes or so until the pears are cooked through. Poke with a toothpick to test. Always ensure that the pears are immersed in the water. You could keep turning them from time to time to ensure proper cooking on all sides.
4. When done remove the pears, drop in the raisins into the water/kitsch mixture and let the mixture continue to boil and reduce. Don't let it burn away. Do keep an eye on it.

Chocolate Walnut Fudge sauce :
4. Melt the butter and chocolate.
5. Add the cocoa powder. Cook for a minute or so.
6. Add the milkmaid and keep stirring till it thickens.Add the walnuts. Cool.


Creme Anglais :
7. Beat sugar and egg yolks till fluffy.
8. Warm milk and fresh cream along with vanilla essence till it is just up to come to a boil. Take off heat.
9. When the milk cream mixture is lukewarm, add it bit by bit ( mind you bit by bit) to the egg yolk mixture. Mixing continuously to avoid any lumps and curdling of eggs.
10. Put it back on stove on low heat. Continuously stir vigorously. Be very cautious at this step as the mixture could curdle with the cooking of the eggs. The very sign of a curdle, take off heat and place in an ice bowl. Blend it when cool and pass through strainer.It usually takes about 2 minutes or so for this to turn into custard - coats the back of the spoon and does not slide of completely.
Mine did begin to curdle but I had the ice bath ready.

Assembly:
Place the pear in a plate. Drizzle the walnut chocolate fudge sauce. You could thin it out by adding some warm milk. Ladle the creme anglais on the sides of the plate and then spoon some of the raisins along with the syrup too.
This tastes good chilled as well as warm.
We had it when it was warm. We've got more to have them when chilled. What I really liked was that this dessert is very light and not too sweet as with Indian desserts.

1 comment:

  1. That looks all yummy! But it looks tedious too! Must give it up for your patience!

    ReplyDelete

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