Poire Belle Hélène
Scaled amounts are a guide — baking times and pan sizes do not scale with them.
Ingredients
- 6 medium-firm pears (Williams or Comice), stalk and core left intact
- 250 g sugar
- 500 ml water
- Juice of 1 lemon
- ¼ tsp vanilla powder or extract (optional)
- 1 litre vanilla ice cream
- Warm chocolate sauce, to serve
- 40 g broken hazelnuts or flaked almonds, toasted
Auguste Escoffier built this in 1864 and named it after Offenbach's operetta La Belle Hélène, and it has survived unchanged because the contrast does all the work: a cold pear, colder ice cream and a sauce poured on hot. The pears are peeled with the stalk left on and poached whole in lemon syrup under a paper lid, which keeps them submerged so they cook evenly and stay pale. The only trick at the table is trimming the base flat so the pear stands up.
Method
Boil the water, sugar and lemon juice in a large saucepan to make a syrup, adding the vanilla if using.
Peel the pears, leaving the stalk and core in place, and lower them into the syrup. Lay a round of parchment on the surface and cover with a lid so the pears stay submerged.
Poach for about 30 minutes, until tender.
Lift the pears out and trim the bases flat so they stand upright.
Chill them in the refrigerator until needed.
To serve, put one or two scoops of vanilla ice cream in each dish, stand a pear on top, pour over warm chocolate sauce and scatter with the toasted nuts. Serve at once.
