Pear Crostini and Unexpected Caramel

Outside my window, today is unexpectedly beautiful. It's deliciously sunny and warm, the icicles on the building are melting and twinkling away, and I can hear the cars down the street encounter a puddle at the corner. It seems very much like Spring might be coming, a relief after all of the cold and wind lately. I don't want to get my hopes up too much, but I can enjoy the moment. I've spent today moving between different tasks and even brains... the cleaning part of me, the school-reading part of me, the pleasure-reading part of me, the art part, the cook. I can't seem to settle to anything for more than forty minutes at a time. Which I suppose is okay, as long as things are getting done, right?

It was four o'clock recently and I realized that I haven't yet had anything to eat today. Not ideal, but I haven't had much of an appetite lately. I pondered what to make - something light and spring-like if I could manage it because the weather seems to be inspiring that kind of thing. Flipping through Plenty yielded what might be a lovely dessert or fantastic brunch course or maybe an appetizer in the form of Yotam's Pear Crostini recipe. This was an excellent set of flavours - definitely try it out. As usual, all of the ingredients are as outlined in the book but the recipe instructions incorporate my observations and substitutions.

Pear Crostini
(p. 278, Plenty)

Serves 4 generously

1/4 cup pine nuts
5 tbsp olive oil, plus extra to finish
1 garlic clove, peeled
salt and black pepper
4 large slices sourdough bread, cut 1 1/2 inches thick
3 semi-ripe pears (they need to be firm)
2 tsp sugar
2 tsp lemon juice
4 to 5 oz good quality goat cheese
picked chervil leaves to garnish

Assemble ingredients!

 A few omissions and substitutions to begin with - I substituted pecans for the listed pine nuts as I had them on hand, and I omitted the chervil as I didn't have any. I also scaled down the recipe as I was just feeding myself and this didn't seem like the kind of dish that would hold well for later consumption.

Preheat the oven to 400F. Place the nuts, 4 tablespoons of the olive oil, the garlic, a pinch of salt and some black pepper into the bowl of a food processor.

 Work into a course and wet paste. I found that I didn't get an even paste in my food processor, likely because it was such a small volume to work with. I think if you had a blender, that might be the better choice of appliance. Use a brush to apply the paste to one side of every sourdough slice. As my paste was pretty chunky still, I ended up using a combination of a spoon and my fingers to spread things around. You may find a brush works well, or you may need to improvise a little. ^_^ Lay the slices on a baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes, or until lightly golden.

 Once the bread has toasted to your desired darkness, remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly.

While the bread is in the oven, prepare the pears. Stand each pear on a cutting board and trim off a very thin layer of skin from each side. Then cut the pear lengthways into four thick slices. I ended up cutting mine into five slices - the middle one contained the core. I just trimmed off the sides of that slice and added them to the other slices.

Remove the core with the tip of a knife if required. Place the slices into a bowl with the remaining 1 tablespoon of oil, the sugar, lemon juice, and a pinch of salt. Toss gently. Initially, I had some hesitation about the presence of the olive oil here, but it smelled great which eased my mind a bit.

Take a ridged griddle pan (if you have one) and place on high heat until piping hot. I didn't have one, so I substituted a large frying pan. Lay the pear slices in the pan and leave for about a minute each side, just to make char marks if you are using the griddle pan. Or you could do what I did and throw the remainder oil/sugar/lemon juice solution from the bowl into the pan and let the pear slices simmer in that for a while. Why not?

The pears started to brown after a moment or two and were flipped when they got golden. The oil/sugar/lemon juice solution started to caramelize in the pan which added a really fantastic aroma and a bit more flavour to the mix. Plus, once the pears were done, I got the treat of scraping the caramel out of the pan and eating it before it hardened and had to be scrubbed away. Why waste an unexpected treat?

Once the pears are golden on both sides, carefully remove them from the heat and prepare to assemble the crostini. Layer thin slices of the cheese (mine has been in the freezer so it crumbles rather than slices neatly) with the thick slices of pear. You want to be able to see both clearly, so let them overlap and create some height.

Return the baking pan to the oven and let warm for 3 to 4 minutes, or until the cheese starts to melt just a little. Garnish with the chervil, if using, drizzle with the additional olive oil if desired, and sprinkle with more freshly ground black pepper. Then enjoy.

SO GOOD.

Also, I think I might need to try to make that caramel intentionally...