Chocolate dipped pears with pistachio toffee crumbs

Pass the matchsticks! I’m several days back from Oz and still crippled with the worst jet lag I’ve had in 20 years of regularly making the interminable Sydney-London journey. Jet lag does, however, have benefits. Pre-dawn espresso-fuelled runs along the beach (to shake myself into the proper time zone) are no bad thing. And during hours of tossing and turning my mind replays the best bits of our trip. That pretty much means my sleepless nights are spent thinking about food.

Sydney loves a food and drink trend, especially when it comes to coffee. Pour-over and cold-drip is still keeping the caffeine geeks occupied, but the really ubiquitous new coffee thang is piccolo latte.

Technically it’s a ristretto shot, topped with a decent slosh of steamed milk. It’s served in a machiatto glass or dinky 100ml paper cups. (Coffee consumption doesn’t get more serious than at this joint in Marrickville.) Lemon curd tartlets also seem to be everywhere and I can confirm that consuming the two together is a very good way to pass the time.

Fattoush, the gorgeous sumac-redolent Middle Eastern salad (which my brother calls lazy persons tabbouleh as the veg isn’t chopped up so finely) is also incredibly popular, both in restaurants and home cooking. I followed the herd and made a batch for Christmas lunch, which was lovely with our Christmas lamb roasted on a spit.

Radishes, a key ingredient of fattoush, also seem to be the thing in Sydney at the moment, shaved into salads, slathered in butter, roasted or pickled. Pickled matter generally is everywhere, as it is in many UK restaurants. I was very keen to try Cornersmiths, a coffee shop specialising in pickled fruit and veg, but was tragically (for us) closed for the holidays. However, Marrickville did deliver us a terrific and reasonably-priced Vietnamese meal at Phd where we stuffed ourselves with Pho and caramelised pork.

Nearby in Haberfield, home to the best Italian food in Sydney, we queued around the block at Pasticceria Papa for one of their famous ricotta cakes. This is the most completely gorgeous ricotta cake imaginable: a lightly and fluffy ricotta cake enveloped in perfect pastry.

We also had a lovely bite at the stunning Gowings Bar in Sydney’s CBD. After managing to find it. There’s no obvious sign, its website is horrendous, and we had to ask two different people how to find the entrance. (Is this some tragic marketing wheeze?) No surprise that it was almost empty when we lunched there a few days before Christmas despite the crowds in the streets below. It is, however, an absolutely beautiful space and offers a fantastic menu, featuring yummy stuff cooked on wood fired rotisseries and ovens. (FYI - go to the gorgeous Art Deco State Theatre in Market Street, through the old milk bar, and up to the bar via the lifts).

One of our nicest discoveries this visit was the Leura Garage in the Blue Mountains, a restaurant and bar located in a refurbished garage (we ate supper in the spot my mum used to leave her car for a service).

The food is fresh, zingy and locally sourced and a welcome change from standard Blue Mountains fare. We ate several meals here and everything was terrific but my favourite treat was a chocolate dipped fig sprinkled with pistachio nuts. The figs were juicy ripe and with the dark chocolate, didn’t seem like such a naughty pudding.

I’ve had a go at recreating it, using pears instead of out-of-season figs. I’m thinking a little spoon of mascarpone with this wouldn’t go astray. I’m pretty pleased with this one, considering my jet lag.

Chocolate dipped pears with pistachio toffee crumbs

Serves: 4

For the pears

• 4 firm but ripe pears, like Conference
• 1 litre pomegranate juice

For the pistachio toffee

• 100g caster sugar
• 70g butter
• pinch of salt
• 40g roasted shelled pistachios

• 100g dark chocolate

Method

1. Peel the pears leaving the stalk in place. Bring the pomegranate juice to the boil then reduce the heat, lower in the pears, and simmer gently for 10 minutes, or until just tender. (If you can’t be bothered with pomegranate juice, just make a poaching liquid with 150g caster sugar and 1 litre water).
2. While the pears are poaching, make the toffee. Place the sugar, butter and salt in a heavy-based pan over a medium heat. Stir continuously. Initially the mixture will look like a curdled mess but keep stirring as it bubbles: the butter and sugar will amalgamate and start to caramelise. You need to get it to the hard-crack stage. This took me about 5 minutes. To see if it’s ready, drop a fingernail-sized amount into a glass of water and if it turns hard immediately, it’s ready. Be vigilant – this burns easily.
3. Line a baking sheet with baking paper and then pour on the toffee. It should spread out in a contained way into a lovely glossy puddle. Scatter over the pistachios, gently pressing them into the toffee if necessary. Set aside to cool and harden.
4. When the pears are done, lift them out of the liquid and gently place them on kitchen towel. Pat dry, cool a little and then chill.
5. When the toffee has hardened completely – it should be brittle – break most of into pieces and blitz in a food processor. This makes way more crumb than you need, so set some of the toffee sheet aside to eat on its own or to serve with the pears.
6. Melt the chocolate in a double boiler. Place the pears on a chopping board. (It might help to trim the bottoms slightly so the fruit stands upright.) Pour the chocolate over the pears so that they are completely covered, then sprinkle over some of the pistachio toffee crumbs.
7. Set the pears aside until the chocolate sets, or chill if you’re in a hurry. Serve with a shard of the pistachio toffee and maybe a dollop of mascarpone, cream or ice cream.