Pear Butter

What do you do with 3kg of pears?

Paul, obviously wanted to make pie and he made a sort of covered tart tatin. He firmly believes that pie must have pastry on top as well as the bottom.

I wanted to do some kind of preserve, something we could eat either sweet or with savoury stuff, but easy enough since I'm a newbie in the world of canning.

This are the pears left after the tatin

So I googled "glut of pears" and found this recipe. Pear butter? It was the first time I came across with this term, but I liked the idea, spreadable pear! Not exactly jam or sauce, but maybe closer to what I know as a compote. And you can have it on toast or with some roasted meat.

The pears were quite small and on the under ripe side, but they were starting to fall off the tree so we decided to harvest them before the wasps arrived.

That's the recipe:

• 1.5kg of hard pears (peeled, cored and sliced)
• 2 cups of water  (you can always add more if the mixture gets dry)
• Juice and zest of 1/2 lemon
• Half a tsp of freshly grated nutmeg
• 1 cup of white granulated sugar

Method:

1. Put the sliced pears, lemon juice and water into a heavy bottomed saucepan and heat gently until the pears soften completely. Stir every now and then to stop the pears sticking. 
2. Puree the soft pears.
3. Add the lemon zest, sugar and nutmeg. Stir well and let the mixture thicken over a very low heat. When the mixture can be heaped on a teaspoon I poured it into hot sterilised jars and sealed them with plastic lined metal lids immediately. Process them in a hot water bath for ten minutes.

You can play with the flavours and the spices!