Pear Tart

When I come home really late at night after a bender, I get on the couch, turn on the Food Network, forget to brush my teeth, and fall asleep. When I wake up in the morning, occasionally I’ll remember a few food tips from the night before. One example would be Bobby Flay’s green chile sauce. From what I remember, you grill the chilis and throw them in a blender with some garlic, honey, and a couple other things. I made it a few days after seeing it once, and it was decent. Nothing to remember.

Last week when a coworker showed up with a gigantic bag of pears, a memory from one of these nights clamored back into my head. The memory: a chef placing a bunch of sliced pears into a spiral shape in a skillet, carmelizing them, then once the pears and goop had cooled, flipping them over and calling it a Pear Tart. When I saw this bag of pears and remembered this tart, I had no choice but to make it. I grabbed my share of pears and began strategizing for some tart making over the weekend.

Before going home on Friday, I ran across the street to the Café to get some pointers. Unfortunately the cooks I knew the best over there all got cleaned out a couple months ago as a part of the big drugs clean-up, but there was one girl working there who I’d given a ride to Napa once, so I sat down with her in the alley as she smoked a cigarette and tried to back into this pear memory.

She suggested softening the pears in butter for a little while first, throwing on some brandy or other tasty alcohol to draw out liquid and add flavor, then covering them with a mixture of brown and white sugar and whatever flavors I might want to add, maybe cinnamon and vanilla. After getting a nice ooze going, I was to let it cool in the skillet then flip her over and it should work. Her instructions were almost enough for me. They seemed a bit culinary school esque, what with the two types of sugars and the brandy. I’m in absolutely no position to turn my nose up on a professional cook, I just thought that I’d keep shopping for a guide.

Well, it’s Monday and I didn’t make any tarts this weekend (did poach a few pears though). Today I thought I’d see if I could find a recipe for this tart on the internet. Sure enough, epicurious.com came through. Their version was a bit different than my memory’s and the cook in the alley’s, but it sounded pretty rad so I stuck with it, with only a few minor adjustments.

This recipe suggested melting the butter first until the foam subsided before adding the sugar and then loading in the pears. I wasn’t really sure what they meant by letting the foam subside. Does all of it have to go away? While I was watching my butter, the foam definitely went down, but not all the way, and the liquid began to turn brown. Was this the path towards clarified butter? Or was this just brown butter? I checked on epicurious while waiting, and their instructions for clarified butter were way more complicated than I bargained for, so I just threw in the sugar and hoped it’d work out.

Piling in the pears on top of the sugar and butter was a total treat. Getting that perfect spiral was a bit tough, so mine was more of a messy swirl pattern. With the first slice, the juice started popping out of the fruit and the aroma shot out. By the time I’d put in all the sliced pears and sprinkled them with cinnamon, the entire house smelled like a teeny bopper comedy on a Sunday afternoon – kind of fruity in that warm, thumbs up way. Steve just requested a shout out for commenting on how good it smells every time he walks by. There you go Steve. Didn’t know your sense of smell was going to get compared to a teeny bopper comedy, did ya? The instructions said to let them roll until the sugar turned to a deep amber color, then cool them completely before putting a crust on top and putting the whole thing in the oven.

This is where they are now. This sucker is going to kick ass. I can tell already. Unless something goes horribly wrong with the crust and baking process, I think we’re in business. Dude, this better be good. I resisted buying candy twice on the way home in preparation for this dose of sugar.

I just took a look and I didn’t tuck the crust into the sides neatly enough. There’s some serious bubbling going on and the goop has spilled over on to the top of the crust. Hmmm, hopefully this does not spell trouble. The big challenge is going to be getting this thing to stay together when I flip it over. When I think of a Pear Tart, I think of one, maybe two layers of pears. Well, I cut up way too many pears on this one, so we’ve got about four layers of thick cuts going on. We’re talking about flipping over a skillet onto a plate and expecting FOUR layers of pears to stay together in perfect tart shape!!! This is insanity!!!

How’s this even possible? Do I have to let it cool enough until the caramel gets to a candy-like consistency so that it holds all the pears in place? What about the fact that the crust, which is soon to be the foundation of this operation, looks like a total dome? I definitely don’t have to let it cool. The recipe says eat it warm, I want to eat it warm so that my i-cream goes to just-cream, and there’s no way I’m waiting much longer. We may just have an elaborate crisp filling coming our way. That’s ok though.

Tangent – what if Samuel L. Jackson decided not to yell, “We’ve got to get rid of these snakes on a plane!” and instead yelled, “We’ve got to get rid of these pears in a tart!” Oh man that’d be my dream quote. If I he ever comes to my birthday pizza and pool party, I definitely want him to yell that.

Ok, it’s cooling. The bubbling has settled down, the goop that spilled over now just looks like a browner part of the normal crust, and I’m hoping that the inner goop solidifies a bit. Dude…….the anticipation.

Wow…the flip went fine. The pears had cooked down enough so that they just sort of plopped down on the crust. There was nothing hard about the goop. It remained goop. I expected some sort of solidity, but no, just goop. The tart tasted good. The crust was crispy and light, while the carmelization intensified the pears to a sweet tart bang. I can’t say much about how it looked. The pears were more brownish than golden, and my not taking the time to make the perfect spiral shape dealt the finished product a major blow. It looked kind of a like a big Danish. I’d be a bit excited, actually, if somebody were to describe it as culinary student esque. Hmm.