A few pounds of slightly under-ripe pears

[Islay]

What can I do with them? I'm wondering whether it's worth poaching them a bit and then preserving them in a heavy syrup, but not sure if it's worth all the effort if they're going to be a bit flavourless.

Do we think they'd make a half decent chutney or something? Any ideas at all? They're definitely still quite solid, but have a reasonable amount of flavour. Or will they ripen if I leave them on the windowsill for a week?

[Milims]

Sweet pickled pears are lovely - especially in a pnacake with ice cream and cream!

[Green Aura]

Does it depend what sort of pears they are? I always eat the rock-hard conference pears. OH finishes off the one's that go soft - I can't bear the texture of ripe pears.

Try putting a couple in a bowl with a banana - it gives of something (ethylene oxide if memory serves) which causes other fruit to ripen quickly. If it does the trick you can maybe ripen others more slowly.

Then make pickles with what's left.

[Millymollymandy]

Pears ripen - it's just that when they are ready to come off the tree they need another week to 10 days to actually ripen enough to eat.

Having said that a lot of our conference pears (this year) have been sitting around for weeks and just went all soft and rubbery whilst still being hard and inedible inside.

[Silver Ether]

you could look at my post for pear and cinnamon jelly ... I can't do the linking post together thing.

[Carltonian Man]

Dried pear if you have a dehydrator. Worked ok for me

Mart

[Islay]

thanks for all the ideas! They seem to be ripening a bit, might try a bit of jelly, a bit of pickled pear and a bit of dried pear. yum!

[jim]

Chop the pears into walnut sized pieces, mix with an equal amount of walnuts. Pour over a little lemon juice to stop the pears from browning. Serve on a bed of watercress and dress with an equal amount of crumbled Stilton. Sybarritic delight!!!

Love and Peace
Jim

[Carltonian Man]

That sounds gorgeous Jim. Will definitely give that one a go

Mart

[sleepyowl]

Pear chutney

[Mylovelyhorse]

I made a lovely pear tarte tatin yesterday - it'd be worth keeping a few to one side to ripen further and then do this with them. Absolutely gorgeous...

[Thomzo]

Years ago my ex and I had a similar glut of pears. It led to our first venture into wine making and made about 2 dozen bottles.

The first bottle was opened after about 6 months and was absolutely awful. But we drank it anyway. The second bottle was opened about 3 months later and was similarly bad. The third, about 3 months later, was also revolting. We carried on opening bottles every 3 months or so and they were all disgusting.

We had about 3 bottles left when we moved house so we put them in my mum's loft with a load of other wine for safe-keeping and forgot them. About a year later she said that she opened one and it was delicious. We rushed over and grabbed the last two bottles which were, absolutely to die for.

Pear wine. Delicious after about 5 years.

Zoe