Pear, Broccoli, Celery and Stilton Crumble

The fruit trees in the garden are seriously heavy at the moment, laden with cooking apples and berries and crab apples and pears, the latter of which we have in such abundance I’m sure we could ferment a considerable amount of our own Perry, which I will look into. But in the meantime I got to thinking, when it comes to our fruit bowls at home the humble pear takes a backseat to the more exotic orange, the phallic banana, the sour grapefruit and the frankly ostentatious pineapple.

I personally would have a ripe pear over any of the above and aforementioned, however as is often the case ‘out of sight is out of mind’, and the poor pear remains all too often and unlike its name would suggest, all alone. In fact my only run in with the fruit in recent memory was in its liquid form in the belly of a psychedelic trance festival 100km south of Lake Ballaton in Hungary, it was magic.

Ingredients: (Serves 4)

1 head of celery, chopped into 3cm lengths

3 pears, cored and chopped into wedges

200g sprouting broccoli, the long stemmed stuff

150g stilton cheese, crumbled

300ml single cream

100g wholemeal breadcrumbs

Salt and Pepper

Olive oil

Method:

1. Boil the celery and broccoli for 3 minutes in two separate saucepans, drain all the water off them.

2. In a reasonably shallow pie dish lay out the pear wedges and season lightly with the salt and pepper, randomly position the celery and broccoli over the top and sprinkle the over the stilton. Pour over the cream evenly and then add the bread crumbs, finish with a small drizzle of oil on the crumbs and place in the middle of the oven for 25 minutes until the tops browns.

3. Plate up and season if needs be. It is possible to thicken the sauce by using double cream, mine was a vague attempt at lowering the calories.