Serious Eats: Recipes
Cook the Book: Pear and Ginger Cake
Unlike apples and oranges, pears can be a frustrating fruit. It's hard to tell when exactly they should be eaten, and their window of perfect ripeness is small. Who hasn't bought a bowlful of slightly firm pears only to discover, in the words of Simon Hopkinson, that "as if by magic" they "blotch and bloat, their insides turning to a fluffy mass of woolly flesh, bereft of both taste and texture?"
Hopkinson's solution to this pressing pear problem is to always cook with underripe fruit; "an impenetrable pear," he claims, "will always perform." Today's recipe, excerpted from Second Helpings of Roast Chicken, is for a Pear and Ginger Cake flavored with almonds; ginger wine; and preserved ginger, which can be found in specialty markets (or make your own).
Sounding a bit like Rachael Ray, Hopkinson says this dessert is "yummo-scrummo beyond belief."
Win 'Second Helpings of Roast Chicken'
In addition to excerpting a recipe from Simon Hopkinson's new book each day this week, we're also giving away five (5) copies. Enter to win here.