There's a reason why you don't find certain dishes at restaurants, like this one. It didn't come out tasting too bad. I mean, it's edible.
Among apples and squash, it is also pear season out here in the Pacific Northwest. You name it, bosc, red anjou, green anjou, etc. The fruit is plentiful and inexpensive to procure a few pounds of each. The pear, while delicate in flavor, tastes fairly strong when not fully ripened. The flesh is firm and it stands up to harsher cooking methods like frying versus poaching.
I have really only seen sweet preparations of pears: pear tartlets, pear and almond tarts, pear jam, preserved pears, pear bread, poached pears with honey and rosewater, pear paired with much stronger flavored cheeses like bleu and Gorgonzola, pear salad. It is the sweetness that the pear brings that allows some dishes to flourish across continents and cuisines.
I tried a dish on a whim tonight using an almost though not quite ripe bosc pear. It has an interesting taste that might just stay as bachelorette cooking and not something to be served up to guests. Broccoli isn't my favorite vegetable, but it is readily available during winter and aside from frying, blanching, steaming, baking, roasting, or boiling it into a soup, it's a pretty boring vegetable to eat. Nonetheless, it's what was starting to wilt in my fridge.
I wanted to do something different. Be experimental. I made this one up as I was cooking it:
1 small broccoli head with stem
1 bosc pear, cored and diced
2 tbsp EVOO (for frying)
1 tbsp rice vinegar
1 tbsp soy sauce
dash of salt
Heat the oil until hot but not smoking. Add the pear and broccoli stem slices and sauté.
Add the broccoli florets, vinegar, and soy sauce. Stir fry until the florets turn a dark green color.
Remove from heat and serve.
The flavor combinations of this ratio is a bit "off" and lacks the basics of cooking fundamentals, but who the hell cares? I was cooking for one and not for guests. I enjoy every ingredient by itself on this ingredient list and I know what pairs really well with pears.
In retrospect, any type of fruity vinegar--balsamic, apple cider, or rice wine vinegar--is likely too sweet for this dish. It really brought out the sugary taste of the bosc. That was unexpected. Just so you know. I don't have any leftover broccoli. What is leftover in the dish is the diced pear.
And about the broccoli stem. That hard and thick, almost waxy skin that wraps around the broccoli stem that most Americans and restaurants throw away? It can be peeled and the inner stem is quite tender.
