Roasted Pears

Ingredients:
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 vanilla bean
4 medium ripe pears (about 1 ½ lb.), preferably Comice or Bartlett
2 tsp. fresh lemon juice
2 Tbsp. unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces
Water

Preparation:
Preheat the oven to 400°F.

Place the sugar in a small bowl. With a thin sharp knife, split the vanilla bean lengthwise and scrape out the seeds. Add the seeds to the bowl of sugar. Using your fingers, rub the seeds into the sugar until evenly dispersed. (Discard the spent pod, or bury it in a canister of sugar – soon it’ll have a wonderful fragrance, and you can use it in most any recipe – or use it to make vanilla extract.)

Peel the pears and halve them lengthwise. Core them, if you like. (I didn’t bother, but it would make them easier to eat. Whichever you choose, leave the stems intact. They make for a pretty presentation.) Place them cut side up in a large baking dish and drizzle them with the lemon juice. Dust liberally with some of the vanilla sugar. (I used ¼ cup.) Dot with butter. Add 2 tablespoons water to the dish.

Slide the dish into the oven, and bake the pears, basting every ten minutes with the pan juices and turning them once or twice, for 40 minutes to 1 hour, or until they are glazed, cooked through, and very tender. The syrup in the dish will thicken and darken as it cooks, but if it evaporates too quickly – before the pears are ready – add a tablespoon or two more water to the dish. (I added 2 tablespoons at the 30-minute mark and another 2 at 40 minutes, stirring them into the caramelly pan juices with my basting brush.)

Serve warm, with ice cream, crème fraîche, or a glug of cream.

Note: I could also imagine serving these as a savory side dish to roasted pork or game, if you used some interesting spices and a light hand with the sugar.

Yield: 4 servings

Notes:
I found this on Orangette, a cute blog that I found recently. Here is a link to this particular post. Ms. Molly has some particularly fun notes about the recipe here: http://orangette.blogspot.com/2007/11/so-warm-so-fragrant.html