Savory Pear and Stilton Tart

It feels good to have a reason to bake and cook again. Being in school and having all my meals prepared for me (no matter how wonderful and nutritious they are) robs me of one of my creative outlets and ways of expressing my affection to other people.  



Just out of the oven, cheese still bubbling...

This first recipe was improvisioned off of a mushroom and goat cheese tart that I remembered seeing once in my Betty Crocker cookbook. I was thinking about how an important part of culinary education requires a little confidence to experiement and substitute ingredients, switching apples for pears, goat cheese for Stilton... how that principle could apply to increasing the public's acceptance of different varieties of produce and working towards a more colorful diet.

This is a very simple example. I was rushing around Montpelier doing errands, and had only an hour and a half to get ready for a potluck gathering. I'd just spent $15 on several pounds of Scott Farm pears that were all in various stages of ripeness, and the little Bartletts were the ripest and most likely to get bruised on the ride home.

 

Recipe Approximations:

1/4 package of phyllo dough, ideally fully thawed!

1 stick metled butter- 1 tbsp. for the pan, the rest for dough

1 onion, thinly sliced and carmelized in 1 tbsp. olive  oil and 1 tbsp. butter

8 ounces Stilton

4 medium sized pears of your choice (I used Bartlett since they were the ripest ones I bought)

I grabbed a hunk of blue, veiny Stilton cheese and some frozen phyllo dough and hoped that the car was warm enough to thaw it out driving between Montpelier and Barre. Making my own crust would have been preferrable, as I am not a huge fan of "semi-homemade" cooking, but I don't mind taking shortcuts every once in a while. This was for homework, after all...

 

I threw the onions into a pan and watched them slowly transform into a deep mahogany brown mush out of the corner of my eye while I was sliced the four small Bartletts into neat segments. It didn't look like it would be enough to cover the tart, so I volunteered one of the larger, slightly under ripe Magness pear.  



 

The dough had only partially thawed, so by the time I had a baking sheet buttered up and the oven preheated, I knew that it was going to be a bit of a mess pulling the tissue paper-thin layers of dough out of the packaging. They came off in irregular geometric pieces and I did my best to smear melted butter between them with a paper towel brush (I'd also realized that my home kitchen does not have a pastry brush).

The carmelized onions went down first, spread thinly over the dough. I arranged the slices of pears over the top in neat columns, and scattered the crumbled Stilton over the top. Thirty minutes later... 



Someone's fingers got in the picture...tsk!







They were well received, easy finger appetizers that people weren't afraid to take at the potluck. Funny how the dishes that require someone to dare to make the first cut or scoop get a little neglected (maybe there's a self consciousness about eating in public?). I was satisfied with the constrat of the sharp, salty contrast of the Stilton with the sweetness of the pear.