After seeing Julie and Julia earlier this year, Anthony and I immediately (i.e. on our way home from the theater) went to a bookstore in search of a cookbook. We couldn't find Julia Child, and we tend to do more Italian cooking anyways, so we settled on Marcella Hazan's Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, which turned out to be an excellent choice. Basically whatever ingredient we've had, we've been able to look it up in this book and find a delicious recipe. The basic tomato sauce recipe is amazing.
So when we had several pounds of Seckel pears from the CSA, we were happy to find that there was a single recipe calling for pears. After trying it, I can see why it's the only recipe--why would you want to do anything else (aside from eating raw) to a pear if you could make this tart instead? Even better, Ms. Hazan describes this recipe as "so simple that only an active campaign of sabotage could ruin it."
Marcella Hazan's Fresh Pear Tart
2 pounds fresh pears (she recommends Bosc or Anjou, I used Seckel)
2 eggs
1/4 cup milk (we were out of milk and substituted watered-down greek yogurt!!)
1 cup granulated sugar
pinch salt
1 1/2 cups flour
butter (for greasing the pan and dotting the top of the tart)
unflavored bread crumbs
Bake at 375 F in a 9 inch round cake pan for 50 minutes, or until golden brown.
I'm generally not a fan of peeling things, because it's a pain and I'm lazy and prone to cutting myself, but the texture of the pear skin would be very strange in this recipe. So peel, core, and slice the pears into small pieces. (Taking pictures of the cooking process is a good excuse for getting out of the parts you don't like to do...)
Beat together the eggs and milk (or watered-down yogurt! She really was right that it's hard to ruin this recipe), add the sugar and flour, and mix well. Add the pears to the batter and stir. In the book, it was implied that there would be barely enough batter to coat the pears, but this was not the case--maybe because the pears were so tiny and more of the weight ended up being skin and insides? But still, Marcella was right, and it wasn't enough to ruin the recipe.
Grease the cake pan with butter, and coat with bread crumbs, dumping out any excess. Pour the batter into the pan and level with a spoon. Dot the top with small pieces of butter. No amount is given, so I guess it depends on how much you enjoy butter.
Bake in the upper third of the oven (I have no idea if it really makes a difference, but I did it anyways) for about 50 minutes, until the top is golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out looking like it's gooey from pears rather than from raw batter.
Take the tart out of the pan while it's still warm. It's equally tasty served warm or cold. I recommend eating it with a dollop of greek yogurt on top (greek yogurt really can be substituted for any dairy product in any situation!) It's very dense, and sweet but not too sugary--and if your pears are particularly ripe and sweet, you could definitely reduce the sugar in the recipe and it would still be delicious.
Also still sort of pie shaped, and therefore good for breakfast.
