Jenny Flynn, the head chef at Faithlegg House Hotel, joined Maria McCann on The Saturday Café for Food At Faithlegg. Jenny brings to the table a Poached Pears, Vanilla Mascarpone and Clementine Cream with Crushed Pistachios.
Poached Pears, Vanilla Mascarpone and Clementine Cream with Crushed Pistachios
The pears in this recipe can be served hot or cold, and the syrup that you cook them in can be heated and served simply with vanilla ice cream, but since it is Christmas, we are going to make them extra special.
Pear Syrup:
(this makes enough syrup for 6 pears to be poached in)
You will need
- 1 vanilla pod
- 1/2 bottle red wine
- 4 shots of ruby port
- 225g brown sugar
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 1 sprig of fresh thyme
- 1 star anise
- ½ an orange sliced
- 6 pears evenly sized peeled but leaving the stalk on
Method:
- Halve the vanilla pod and scrape into a pot with the sugar, port, wine, cinnamon, star anise, orange and thyme.
- Bring to the boil and when hot add in the peeled pears, stalk up so they are sitting in the stock
- Poach for about 20-30mins (really depends on the ripeness of the pears). They should be tender, use a cocktail stick to check to ensure that it is tender all the way through.
- When cooked I leave in the stock overnight, so they take on as much of the stock as possible.
- For this recipe we are serving the pears cold so leave in stock just before putting them onto the clementine and mascarpone mousse
Chefs note:
If serving them warm, remove them from the stock and heat the stock place the pears again standing and serve drizzled with the red wine syrup,
Mascarpone and Clementine Mousse:
(This recipe is easy and can be done the day before)
Makes enough for 6 servings as an accompaniment to the poached pears.
You will need
- 3 eggs large separated
- 2 leaves of gelatin
- 60g of castor sugar
- 225g mascarpone cheese
- 2 clementine juiced and zested
Method:
- Let the gelatine sheet bloom in ice water
- Whisk the egg yolk with the castor sugar until it reaches the ribbon stage. Meanwhile, whisk the egg white until stiff peaks form. I normally do the egg yolks by hand and the whites with a mixer; it's easier.
- When the egg yolks are ready, fold in the mascarpone cheese
- In a small pan add the clementine juice and zest, heat lightly and add the gelatine, gently stir and add to the cheese mixture
- When you are happy that it is well-mixed fold in the egg whites
- Set in glasses or a large bowl so you can decorate with the pears the following day.
To assemble:
Remove the pears from the syrup and pat dry
Place on top of the mousse with crushed pistachio nuts and garnish with thyme leaves and cinnamon and icing sugar
Chefs tip :
You can use any remaining pears as a garnish for your cheese board and they are great accompaniment to cheese.
Enjoy!
Jenny Flynn
