#caramelized

Anyway, here is my Roasted Chicken Rice (烧鸡饭) from the same store. It featured a roasted or more precisely fried chicken wing, braised bean curd, a braised egg 🥚 and some sliced cucumbers 🥒 to go with the savoury chicken rice. Of course, I had the barbecued pork to go with the rice, just that it wasn’t shown in the picture.

whats crackling? whats snackling? in the near future, possibly YOU! This next one might be good for those of yall who dont have big kitchens. Today on our cooking review revue is Golden Hill pears from the Redwall Cookbook- 

(for crackling and snackling purposes you can find the original recipe at the bottom to follow along)-

MY NAMES CROSS NOW LETS COOK LIKE ANIMALS

SO, “what goes in to Golden Hill Pears?” YOU MIGHT ASK

sugar

water

4 medium pears (peeled, halved, cored)

ground allspice

As you can guess by the ingredients, golden hill pears are just caramelized pears. Am a huge fuckin fan of caramelized stone fruits- peaches, pears, plums,- but contrary to my normal method of using an oven to achieve the desired syrupy goodness, this recipe calls only for a little sauce-pot and lid! 

AND, “what does Golden Hill Pears taste like?” YOU MIGHT ASK

If you've had caramelized fruit before you'll get the gist, however, these are on the higher end in terms of taste 100%

The allspice is such a brush of warmth and comfort

Tastes like cuddling the person you love in front of the fire

Caramel taste is even throughout

Would be so so so good paired with a nice pulled pork stew

And warm apple cider would be perfectionx2

A fulfilling end to a fall season that passed too fast

. Where pear halves called for, strained and used canned pear slices (0% added juice) . Where sugar called for, used fine granulated sugar . Tripled cooking time for initial caramelization

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Go fucking hogwild with the allspice honestly, i used about 2 soup-spoonfuls of it and couldve still probably done more. its up to personal preference but its damn good.

Also; cooked way more evenly than youd think. Once the initial caramelization was done each 'batch' of pears cooked pretty quick.

SO, it took me about 3 tries to get this right as the book describes itself. My first mistake was letting it get to a golden brown color, as the book says you should, because by the time the sugar and water is that color alone in the pan, it is already way too late and is going to burn by the time you add the pears in. You need to add the pears in a bit earlier than whats going to feel right- when the mixture becomes a strong yellow-ish color id say?

The second time, because the first try had burnt, i tried lowering the heat/going against the books advice and stirring throughout. In all previous times ive caramelized something it was good to get some motion in there, so i figured if it burnt before maybe the issue was too much heat and no movement. This didnt work. This instead somehow created massive sugar crystals which over the period of about 30 seconds (once reaching temp and adding to the pan) quickly hardened and had to be chipped away until it broke off the spoon and the pot. Im not a scientist i have no fucking idea.

It mightve tasted good and been a cool cake topper but at this point we were 40 minutes in with no delicious pears so we werent wasting time with tasters.

Third attempt; corrected from previous mistakes. Watched the saucepot like a fuckin HAWK, didnt stir or disturb the pan, had it on medium heat for about 21 minutes until it started turning yellow, added the pears and allspice in immediately, covered and simmered it. I had 2 cans of pears that i strained and patted dry of excess fluid, so with 2 seperate batches for the one pot. I think the second batch came out richer but there wasnt too much a difference. Both came out lovely to eat with the syrup drizzled over top.

All in all, from deciding to make them to having them in my belly, and subtracting failed attempts, id estimate it took about 30 minutes? It would be longer if you prepared the pears yourselves, along with the cooktime for them probably, but its not neccesary for this recipe.

It tastes fuckin good and would be excellent in living situation where all you have available is a portable hot-top. I could see myself making it again now that i know what visual cues to look for.

I give this recipe a solid 8/10 (with 1 being food that makes one physically sick and 10 being food that gives one a lust for life again.)

🐁 ORIGINAL RESIPPY TEXT BELOW 🐁